 |
| (visual by EclecticBlogs via this license) |
dispatch fourteen
Caravel by Ian Singleton
debuted 15 October 2009 | kept 483 times | click to keep
At eleven am, I reached the city of Manistee. in view of Lake Michigan to the west. The sun emerged from the clouds and glistened on the lake through the spokes of trees, making slivers of the dalliance. I pulled off as soon as I could, but when I stopped at a dirt road and pointed toward the lake, clouds shrouded the sun and the glimmer on the water vanished.
When I saw a few haggard trees above a dirt lot with a trailer, I braked and tooled into the parking lot. A sign read Roadside Café. I stepped in the door and found a seat across from a short blonde sitting on the outside of a booth, her legs snug beneath the table in ski pants. When she stood I watched her. She must have seen me from the reflection in the window because she glanced over her shoulder and twitched her mouth. She entered the Women’s. I opened the greasy menu and read the specials, flipping the page, slouching. Three small children bounced in unattended. I lowered the menu to see the blonde paying the cashier and trying to keep the children from hopping into her elbows. There was no glance back as I watched her leave herded by the kids toward a man outside blocking the sun from his eyes.
You from around here, asked the waitress.
No.
What can I get you?
She was staring away and rolling her shoulders to stretch her neck.
I just want a coffee, I said.
She huffed as she wrote on her pad, mentioned how quick it would be, and swiveled on her heel.
An old man was smoking a cigarette and looking at two buzzcuts in baggy jeans and sweatshirts sitting on the curb next to their bikes. I slid out of the booth and raised my hand to signal the waitress. I’m just gonna go over to that gas station for a minute.
It’s gonna be ready in a sec, hon.
I just gotta get some smokes, I said. I bounded toward the door and pushed through, then clasped my coat around myself and took long scissoring strides to the gas station.
The boys yelled at me to buy them cigarettes. The first time you bought smokes was at a store that sold to minors. You used the money ma gave you for a treat before you stepped out the door that afternoon. Dem started at about fourteen. He must have been smoking in the diner where he met his wife, Fran, and soon after moved into that apartment outside South Bend. She mothered two children, Claude and Belle, after finding work as a secretary at a lawyer’s office–a real good job, the family said. He must have been sitting there smoking and drinking in the living room and in comes Fran. It was a hard day at work, but Dem got a head start on the drinking. The kids are out playing and it’s a late winter evening so the sun slants through the windows and exposes all the winter dust in the room. She comes in with a bang of the door and another bang when she slams her bags against the baseboard.