..:S...P...I...D...E...R...B...I...T...E...S:..

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

"I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had..."
- Tears For Fears/Gary Jules



FICTION:



Overtime



Vicki wanted to be alone.

She ran through the huge double doors, the heels of her hands tearing down the tournament schedule, the directions to a garage sale, and a child's drawing of a lost cat.

So what? She thought in disgust. How the hell would someone find that cat anyway? From a drawing with three eyes, three legs and no ears? It should be easy, if the cat really is green. Of course then you wouldn't need the drawing. . .

The doors rattled the screws on their hinges, trying to get out of her way. One of them rebounded against the wall of the sports arena too fast and she stumbled and ended up on the ground trying to get out of the door’s way instead. She sat there for a second, still hearing the sounds of the crowd and the fight on the ice coming out in waves from under the doors. She'd just done something to start that fight and she thought that was funny. For some reason it wasn't funny to anyone else, especially her father. She was outside to get away from him.

Thinking about it now, there was one thing about her father that always confused her. She couldn't understand how a fight always made her daddy smile, before he could think about it and get mad. However she always made him mad, before he could think about it and smile.

She looked around, starting to wonder if someone had seen her fall down. Maybe someone driving by saw it and thought she'd just been thrown out. Suddenly she slapped the ground hard, to stop that kind of thinking. That's not why she was outside. She stood up straight, kicked a cigarette butt loose from her shoelace, and walked out to the cars.

She worked her way through the sleeping metal monsters, twisting her body so nothing touched her, alert for signs of life, hoping she wouldn't find any. She stopped at the booth where she and her father had come in, where some boys had been taking money for parking. When she stepped inside, she saw the orange jumpsuits they'd been wearing and the flashlights they'd used to line up all the cars. The jumpsuits were spread out on the floor of the shack, stretched into orange stars, arms and legs straight like snow-angels. The flashlights were where the hands
would have been and they were still on.

Vicki decided that she would be the last girl alive. She had an hour left before the game was over, depending on the penalties, even longer if there was a shoot-out. There wasn't overtime in this small-town shit league. Overtime, undertime, waste of time, she thought. That meant that she would only have an hour to be the last girl on Doomsday. She could make it look like the end of the world though. She already had an idea that would be perfect.

She ran through the cars, looking for the end of them, looking for the last place to park, for the ones who came late. She found it. Down by the river, where the parking lot ran out of concrete and white lines, and broken pieces of a road pointing in every direction, piled high and slowly sliding into the water. Black grease-covered cattails and dead grass surrounded the scene. Pools of water swirling with oil-slick rainbows found their way onto land, while islands of gravel and garbage passed by them on their way into the river. Vicki remembered how mad her daddy had been when they came late to a game once, and he had to park down there; she'd thought it was beautiful. She stopped and stared at all the cars on the slope. Lots of cars had come late. This town loved the games, and if you got to the sports arena after they dropped the puck, the orange boys wouldn't be out there any more to wave you into a safe spot. You just had to leave your car on the slope, tell it to "stay," and run like hell to get a seat. Vicki tilted her head and got down on one knee. It was still beautiful. Cars up and down the river's edge, cars parked so random they were starting a chaos spiral, cars blocking each other in so many layers deep that she felt like an ant navigating the rings on a tree stump, cars ready to roll over if a squirrel bumped into one, cars with a wheel already in the water, cars on such an angle that she imagined their emergency brakes handles popping out and glowing red under the dashboards. Almost perfect, she thought. With these cars, it could be the end of the world. The scene . . . it just needs one more thing . . .

She pulled a bag of peanuts out of her jacket. Her daddy had brought them back for her between periods. It wasn't opened. She hated peanuts, maybe from watching her daddy eat them shells and all ("For the salt!" he said). She knew who else liked them like that though. She looked up. There they were, already rustling on the power lines, pushing their way through the trees to see what she had, she even heard some creeping around under the tires. Crows. The only things that liked hockey season as much as the people around there. The "Riverdome" (the townies had given their arena an impressive name, even though the ice in the rink was ten feet shorter than regulation on all sides) had always been plagued by crows, looking for the steady stream of popcorn and peanuts and sticky cotton-candy spines that the stinky smoky rivers of fans used to find their way from the cars to the games . . . from the games to the cars . . .

She'd been fascinated by the birds in her town before. When she was little, there were those seagulls that Vicki watched following the trail of mulch behind her uncle's plow (and the one that came through the machine alive and even managed to stand up on twisted legs and look around when her uncle got ready to crush its head, he said it did that to "show a predator it wasn't really hurt, amazing huh?" then he twisted his heel and said he was "putting its head out like a smoke!"), or those robins that circled the movie theater (and the way people noticed them depending on the kind of movie they just watched), or those pigeons outside the windows in the big buildings (and the one that the wind knocked off the ledge while it was sleeping, and the way it woke up and returned to its spot with ease, and the way her stomach flipped when she saw that happen on the other side of the glass, saw it not worried about the fall, even stretching a little before it spread it's wings), or those ducks down at the pond (and the big duck that kept stealing all her potato chips from the little ducks, and the way her daddy looked at her when she hit it with the rock, how she was sure the anger in his eyes turned to pride when he saw the accuracy of her throw), she always noticed things about the birds in this town, things that no one else ever could see.

These crows were different too. Maybe it was because she never saw anyone notice them, even point to one. They were hard to see (there was no light outside the stadium) and once you did see one, and you realized how big crows could get living on stadium garbage, then you started to wonder if everyone was really running inside just so they wouldn't miss the first fight. No one had been attacked though, at least not that Vicki had heard. She wondered why not. These things seemed huge, fearless, not really hiding. Not stalking, just watching.

Once, she started to worry that she was the only one who knew they were there. Then, after she got over that scare, she hoped she was the only one who knew they were there. She knew her daddy never saw the crows.

Maybe when I was little, and he was bigger, she thought. Then he might have seen them, not now though.

The first time she noticed them was three seasons ago, when they were waiting in the car after the game, buried in a line, trying to get out. The car creeping and stopping, creeping and stopping. She watched him get madder and madder when someone up ahead would let a car into the line and slow them all back down. Bored, she rolled down her window and slowly dumped her whole bag of peanuts out onto the ground. He didn't notice the black shapes following the car, he didn't even notice that she hadn't eaten a single peanut, even though he'd gotten the bag for her during the opening seconds of the second face-off of the first period. She was scared and excited watching the crows behind the car, and she'd been feeding them on her way out ever since then. Now, tonight, they'd eat early. She rustled the bag and saw more black beaks peeking out of shadows and around corners. They would be perfect for the scene, only they weren't where she needed them to be. She heard a whistle come from inside the arena and looked back over her shoulder. Time was short. She went to work.

She ran from car to car, punching open peanuts in her palm, stopping only to carefully place nuts and fragments on top of them. One under the wiper blade, one in the socket of each headlight, one inside a hood ornament, three along a bug guard, one inside a broken trunk lock (that was a mistake, she heard it fall inside and rattle around, wasted), one behind a tire, one in front of a tire. That's perfect around the tires! she thought. If there are crows hopping around tires without flinching or worrying about getting run over, it would have to be the end of the world . . .

She skidded to a stop, almost falling again, and stared down at something in one of the cars. There was a baby seat, with a stuffed animal locked in tight instead. She smiled, suddenly remembering a joke she and her cousin Gary played on a neighbor once, back when they were little (and a little more cruel). They had been harassing some puppies (even though they'd both been told twice already that they were too "new" to mess with) and next door a baby had been left parked in its buggy while the mom went back into the house for something. Vicki and Gary saw it wiggling there alone and ran over as fast as they could. Little Vicki just wanted to put one of the puppies in the buggy with it but little Gary had another idea. He took the baby out and left a puppy behind instead. Then he dropped in half his candy bar so the puppy would sniff around longer and not want out too fast and ruin the joke. He threw the blue blanket over it and pulled Vicki off behind the neighbor's car to wait. Gary was crouched down, and even though he was holding the baby all wrong (like a football or an animal or something), it was still quiet. Just twisting and looking around with the other half of Gary's candy bar jammed in it's mouth. It didn't start crying until someone screamed. And not because the mommy screamed, because Gary dropped it when he ran. Vicki was left to take the blame, since she stayed behind, doubled up laughing. The baby wasn't hurt, but things seemed worse than they were since it was crying so hard it couldn't catch it's breath. Everyone was pretty crazed until the baby settled down and started breathing normally and turned back to the right color. Even looking around for the candy after a minute. Vicki had never been in that much trouble, before or since, and it was worth it. Every shake, every tear, every smack, every finger in the face that day. She just kept hearing that scream - the sound of a perfect joke. She would walk down the street, glaring and wishing people out of her way, just itching to play that joke on every baby buggy she passed. She got through crowds by playing jokes in her head. She imagined every baby switched with an animal, and the shock and the sounds when they got it home.

"Some things just aren't funny," she told a crow that was tilting its head evaluating her. "And anything that involves a baby is never funny. Bullshit. Babies turned into animals when no one is looking? That's hilarious. Creepy too, like something right out of the Bible, towards the end. The end of the world . . . "

She walked slower through the cars, because she was running out of peanuts, and because she was remembering something else. She wasn't sure how important this memory was, but she was going to let it play out in her head anyway. She had time for one more before the game ended. It was the one thing she could remember that she didn't think was funny, at least not when it happened.

It was a few years back, she'd been stepping out of the shower, foot up on the toilet with some instructions in one hand, twenty minutes after her first period. That new white string must have looked like a steak to my dog, she thought. Because before she knew what was happening, it's head darted in and jaws snapped on the string and it was off and running. She ran after the dog, not worried about her daddy seeing her naked, just worried about him seeing that. She was sliding with both fists around the dog's tail when they both turned a corner and crashed into him. He had time to get both arms out for balance and a grunt of "what the?" before his eyes squinted and saw everything there was to see. He burst into uncontrolled laughter barely getting out "don't worry about it." She just stood there, head down and mortified until he clapped her on her wet back, turned her around by her shoulders with a reassuring squeeze, and sent her sniffling on her way. You know what? she thought. Now that I think about it, that was daddy's finest hour. And he was right. I changed my mind. That is, and was, fucking funny.

She laughed so loud that a crow by her foot hopped back. She thought about getting spanked over that baby. That was funny too. And not only was it funny, there was something about that joke that just made her feel good too. One less baby to grow up to love hockey? she wondered. She heard another whistle and some low grumbling from the crowd and she quickly looked around the parking lot. She wanted to check a clock inside a car and forced herself back to work instead. She wouldn't think about the game. Not the game inside. Not until she had to. This was her time.

She knew the end of the world was almost over. The crows were on the cars though, and for now the scene was perfect. She drifted slowly around the edges of her creation, making it last, imagining the cars coughing and smoking and dying right here where they'd stopped. Then a dog slammed its nose against a windshield next to her and all the crows flew off at once.

She punched the glass furious, and the dog jumped back. Little rat thing, she thought. There was a strobe-flash of memory and she imagined it was that bizarre cat drawing off the front doors that she was looking at instead. A green cat with three legs and three eyes and no ears. A fucked up cat like could exist after the apocalypse, she decided. The drawing makes sense now. She smiled at the dog sweetly.

"Too bad there's no one left. You'll never get out of there. The world ended tonight."

The dog went insane, it seemed to understand what she'd said. She put her nose to the glass where it was snapping and snarling.

"Hey! What's red and has one eye and one ear and two legs? Half a dog! I love that joke. It can be anything you want it to be . . . " The dog tried to bite its way out. "Damn! The last time I saw someone react to the punchline like that was when it used to be 'half a baby!' I wish there would be a way to use 'half a monkey' instead, just once. Hell, that's funny even without the joke!" She moved on, she could hear the organ playing now, no more whistles.

She saw vomit on the side of another car. She remembered when she saw that once before while she was driving. It had made her mad back then, because it reminded her that someone was inside the car driving it. It was too easy to forget she wasn't alone on the road, to forget the cars had anything in them. Here the stain was perfect. Even better if the door was open though, she thought. Maybe I could say he crawled to the water before he died. Her hand dropped the empty bag and reached for the door. Some ice inside the knob cracked as she pulled it up and she hesitated. Then she pulled hard and the car alarm went off.

Now it was too loud to be the end of the world. Even though it was just one car screaming, now it sounded like all of them were alive and angry. The game was over too. A new swarm of colorful noisy creatures streaming between the vehicles, some of them moving towards her, eyes wide as they started to notice the bird shit and claw-marks and peanut shells on the newer cars. Then a hand grabbed her shoulder and squeezed. Expecting her father, she was spun around to face a security guard instead. Armed with a flashlight. Vicki laughed at him (who could take a flashlight seriously?) and said something about how "if he's not allowed to carry a gun, he should at least have a bow and arrow instead." This got her giggling until his eyes narrowed as he recognized her from her stunt that had disrupted the hockey game. She turned to ignore him, thinking, I can still work with this. It could be the scene right before the end of the world, the scene with all the noise . . .

Then her daddy was there, mad, and pulling her by her arm to the car. She thought it would be the perfect time to ask him if he saw the crows. Before she got the chance, she was distracted by a boy that was staring at her. He could see her looking at the remaining crows that were still lingering in the shadows, and since he was a little boy, he started throwing rocks at them. He was missing every shot. Boys always throw rocks at birds, she thought. It's sad, like an animal that shits itself when it sneezes. Her best friend in third grade had a mouse that did that. She thought about it in half a second. Back then, the two of them went through nine cans of spray paint making it sneeze to watch the tiny thing loose control of its bowels. Eventually they sprayed too much, too close, and they sealed it's face up green. It took a couple weeks of crying and guilt, then it was real funny to think about . . .

She could see the boy fishing around his coat pocket for something. She was trying not to look at him anymore. He'll know that I know he knows or whatever, she thought. Still, she wanted to know what he was looking for, all the bigger boys had ruined the scene anyway. Now someone was yelling at her daddy, and he was yelling back while he squeezed her arm. She was worried that the boy seemed to be the only one to realize what she'd done. He finally got his hand out of his pocket and she saw he had a hockey puck.

From the game? she wondered. Shit, to a little boy that's gold.

The boy's fingers were shaking and wiggling around it nervous and excited. She could see how tormented he was. He wanted to throw it sooo bad. Right at her head.

All the boys inside the arena must have wanted that puck when he caught it, she thought. Now he wants to throw it so bad it hurts. Look at him, he must think the puck will hit what his rocks couldn't. Back inside there, he watched it dance around the rink too much. It messed with his little head. Then, when it magically found its way into his hand, something snapped. Now he must think a puck from the game can go wherever you want, and hit whatever you want. He thinks he's only got one throw, and he doesn't want to waste it . . .

The boy threw it. Hard as he could. The daddies stopped fighting. She saw the puck coming fast in the corner of her eye and caught it in her hand. She wasn't sure if she'd ever make a catch like that again. So she made it perfect. She threw the puck over the cars, over the birds, into the river. She was still trying not to look at the boy. Then he was crying. Hard as he could. She found his eyes and stared until everything around him faded away. The scene she'd worked so hard to create, the fighting inside, the arguing outside, the screaming car and the crows and the end of the world, all gone now and forgotten, except for the boy. Now he was crying and she wanted to see him.



-© 2003 david james keaton

::: david - 11:43 PM [+] :::
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