BY JON BEIGHT
Copyright is held by the author. “Big Wheel” (Part One) first appeared in the August 2013 issue of Thickjam. “Like Swatting a Fly” (Part Two) first appeared in the January 28, 2022 issue of Literally Stories.
Part One
Big Wheel
AS WITH all thunderstorms that drift toward my home, I go to our shed to watch their approach. There, resting alongside my gardening tools, are the things that helped to define your childhood. Neatly arranged along the wall are a car seat, a stroller, your broken Big Wheel, a highchair, and the green bicycle, the big gift for your fourth birthday.
Once inside, I grab a rag and begin wiping down your bike. I want it to remain clean and shiny. It was an easy choice of colour. Green was your favourite. Maybe because it was the first colour word you ever spoke.
While I clean, I anxiously keep an eye on a storm that is wandering along the expanse of the river valley. I see a bolt of lightning and begin counting the seconds until the thunder drums on the shed. It is five seconds for every mile. I considered teaching you this when I thought you could grasp the concept. Twenty-one seconds that last one.
The rain will be coming soon. That’s good, as our garden is in dire need of a drenching. We were at the gardening center when I asked you what vegetables you would like to grow. Your first response was carrots, without a doubt. They, along with the rest of the vegetables are looking rather parched.
I finish cleaning your bicycle and watch the storm’s advance. It’s a looming, gray mass that seems to churn in slow motion. Contrasted against the encroaching darkness, another lightning bolt stabs at the earth. I wonder where it hit as I count off fourteen seconds. I begin to feel the first gusts of cool wind. The leaves become animated and there is a certain measure of moisture in the breeze.
As the storm closes in, I think back to other storms where I had to drag you and your Big Wheel indoors. You never wanted to come in, so I would let you ride your Big Wheel inside the house. You loved the rumble of the wheels across the hardwood flooring. Their deafening noise could drown out the loudest of storms.
I take a seat to witness the first drops of rain peppering the driveway. They fall silently, almost secretive, creating transparent polka-dots on the concrete. Another spike of lightning and I count no more than four seconds before the thunder shakes the walls of the shed. As more drops fall, I look again toward the river valley. It is all but obscured by the pall of clouds. Another flash and the interval is two seconds.
I’ve learned to keep constant watch of things of importance. This was something you taught me. You were on your Big Wheel, racing around the driveway as I was mowing the lawn. I had my back to you and never heard the screeching tires, the collision, or the helpless, desperate screams.
The storm is upon me. Uncoiling wind drives liquid missiles into the shed, first on one wall, then another. Countless arcs of raw power tether themselves to the ground for split seconds and vanish. Continuous thunder booms and reverberates off the shed like your Big Wheel rolling across the floor of the house.
This is when I feel closest to you. This is where I feel your essence palpable, sitting among your things while the din of rain, thunder, and wind, conspire to bring me back to better days. The feelings rush forward like the storm, madly swirling in a cauldron of useless sorrow and damaged reality.
Through the chaos, I wheel your bike to the driveway and wait. I don’t turn my eyes away from it. Not for a second.
Part Two
Like Swatting a Fly
I WATCH her as she gets out of her car carrying a plastic grocery bag. She heads to the back door off the kitchen. Entering quietly, she walks with a sort of weird mechanical stride to the kitchen table and sits down, never acknowledging I am there. She fishes out the pack of cigarettes she just bought along with milk and a scratcher.
I watch her calmly undo the wrapper and pull out a cigarette. “Why are you so quiet?” I ask as she brings the lighter flame to the tip of the cigarette.
She doesn’t answer. She just watches the smoke flow upward from the tip in a hypnotic stream.
Finally, she says, “I was just coming back from the Seven-Eleven. It’s a simple neighbourhood drive. Two stops. There should have been nothing to it.”
“What are you talking about?”
She draws off the cigarette and then looks at me for the first time. “He was so little. He shouldn’t have been there. He should have been in his yard, helping his dad mow the lawn. But he wasn’t. He was so lit —” Her voice cracks. She rests her head in her free hand for a moment, then draws on the cigarette again to regain her composure.
I put the milk in the refrigerator and lay the scratcher in front of her on the table.
“You know, when something violent happens to someone and it instantly kills them, we say that they never saw it coming, that they never knew what hit them, as if that is supposed to make us feel better. I don’t believe that. It’s like swatting a fly. Even at the last second a fly will sense that something is about to happen and try to escape the danger. It doesn’t get away, but it knows what’s about to happen.”
“What the hell are you talking about. What happened?”
“He was so little. He came out of that driveway on his Big Wheel like he was shot from a cannon. He was going so fast his little feet weren’t even on the pedals.”
“Who?”
“A bush was blocking my view and I didn’t see him until it was too late.”
She looks up at me with a pleading in her eyes for understanding. I wasn’t ready for that yet. I look out the window of the kitchen and I see the damage for the first time. The right portion of the front bumper area is bent in.
“Did you hit somebody?”
“I know I screamed. I think I heard him scream. I just can’t get it out of my mind what he saw just before I hit him. To him, the car must have looked like a giant blue and silver monster. He had to know in a flash what was about to happen. He had to know he must somehow escape the danger, but in the same instant, he had to know it was too late. He was probably thinking it wasn’t real.”
She breaks down sobbing. I get her a glass of water and give her some time to stop.
“So, you just left the scene?”
She chain smokes another cigarette using the first one to light the second. Her hands are shaking now.
“No. I mean I didn’t just keep going. I slammed on the breaks to avoid him —.” She begins to cry again, and through that, she says, “I don’t know his name. I killed him and I don’t even know his name!”
She draws on the cigarette before continuing with her head down, “I slammed on the brakes, but I didn’t get out of the car. I rolled down the passenger window to try and hear if he was crying or not. That’s when I saw his father mowing the lawn. Somebody had to see what happened. I got scared and left.”
She hits the table with her fist. “How could I do such a thing, leaving that little boy like that?”
Outside, we hear several cars pull up followed by car doors opening and closing.
“Do you have a coin?” She asks, in a calm voice. I realize that her demeanor has relaxed, as though a switch has flipped inside her. No more hands shaking. No more crying. No pleading for understanding.
After a moment of studying her, I hand her a dime. She begins to work on the scratcher.
“The police are here.”
“I know,” she says, almost whispering.
She walks over to where I’m standing and kisses me, wraps my hands around the scratcher, and walks outside.
Part Three
Release Day
LEANING AGAINST my car in this dirt parking lot, I wait for her to show at the gate. The air, though not dead still, shows little regard for humanity. The heat bears down like a heavy wool blanket I can’t toss off. I curse at myself for not fixing my car’s AC when I had the chance. It’s as quiet as a crypt here and I wonder if I have gone deaf. I scrape my boot on the ground to assure myself I can still hear. The occasional puff of a light breeze is a blessing. I try to hold on to it, but it’s no use. When it’s gone, it’s gone.
The double rows of chain-link fencing surrounding this place glisten in the bright sunlight. They are topped by miles and miles of coiled concertina wire. Together they mock the inhabitants living within its boundaries, allowing them the narrowest views of the world beyond where they are. Day after day they quietly, mercilessly tell those inside that you can look but you can’t touch.
Overseeing the fence are watchtowers, strategically spaced around the perimeter. Were it not for them, the repetition of the fencing would be too much for some. As it is, it causes an anxiety in me that is hard to define. I imagine that feeling is how it is on the inside as well, only amplified. Perhaps that’s how it should be, keeping contained all the mistakes made by people whose evaluation of a particular split second in their lives was so fouled by their state of mind and circumstance that all good judgment was tossed aside. The hope is it will cause those inside to do some deep introspection.
That is why my wife is in there. She ran over and killed a four-year-old boy as he rode his Big Wheel, and then she fled the scene. That was over six years ago and today is her release day. That is why I’m here. To pick her up. When she got the notice of her date, she asked me to be here. Reluctantly, I said yes. That was three months ago.
After she was sent to prison, we just drifted apart. I live and work over four hours from here and the weekly trips were taking their toll. The bills for my home, my car, and her attorney were adding up, and my life was falling apart, all because of her one stupid mistake. My visits became less frequent, and our phone conversations were reduced to her talking and my one- or two-word responses. Her letters to me were left unopened while my letters to her were never written.
Finally, we were not communicating at all. But then her letter arrived about her release. I don’t know why I opened it. Maybe her return address was written in a neater style. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. The letter read:
My darling Nicholas, I’m finally getting out! The date is August 10th. Probably around two in the afternoon because that is when released prisoners usually get out of here. Please be here for me. We will be together again! I can’t wait!
So here I am, sweating in this damn place, with nothing to do but wait. I notice a small tree sitting at a distant corner of the lot. It appears to be providing a meager, but useful amount of shade. I decide to drive to it. It isn’t much, but I need the relief, and it’s better than nothing.
No sooner do I park the car than a new gold Jaguar drives up and parks near the gate. I can hear the low rumble of the motor idling. The driver remains in the car. “That lucky fuck has air conditioning,” I mutter to myself.
It’s maybe five minutes, and I hear a loud buzz and the jolt of the gates, followed by the harsh metallic chorus of screeching wheels and rattling chain drives. That is followed by a nicely dressed woman walking to the gatehouse. She signs something on a clipboard and is handed what is probably her personal possessions. She then steps hurriedly to the waiting Jag. At the same time, a heavyset man gets out of the car and they embrace. I mean, they embrace!
I realize it is my wife and her attorney. Feeling something beginning to boil within me, I drive over to them and shut off my engine. A small breeze prevents the dust cloud I raised from engulfing them. As I get out, I see by her expression that she has just recognized me.
While she is continuing to look at me, I hear her ask her attorney if he has it. He reaches into his car and hands her a large brown envelope. She sighs and then walks defiantly up to me. Stopping inches away she practically shoves it into my chest.
“There is a stamped return envelope inside. Just sign it and send it. It was drawn up as simple as possible for you,” she says, with no small amount of contempt in her voice.
“So that’s why you had me come out here?” I ask, not hiding my irritation. “You had me drive to this hell hole just to give me this?”
As she walks to the passenger door of the Jaguar, she says, “I’m going on an extended vacation, and I wanted to be sure you got the papers. Nick, just sign it!” That was the last thing she said to me before they drove off. A breeze came up as they left, pushing the Jaguar’s dust at me and my car’s open window.
I stayed in the lot, leaning against my car for quite a while. There weren’t many thoughts that came to me about our marriage though, because you know, when it’s over, it’s over.
And after all, it’s my release day too.
***
Jon Beight lives in and works in Greenville, South Carolina, U.S. Over the years his stories and photography have been published in Fiction on the Web, Free Flash Fiction, Typehouse, Star 82 Review (*82), and many other fine publications. Also, he has recently put together his first book entitled Lamentable Events (A collection of short and shorter tales of woe #1), which is available in digital form at Barnes and Noble.