Three Perfect Cigarettes
written by:
Amanda Crum
The old man sat in the cab of his son's beat up blue Ford pickup, gazing longingly out the window
at something which no one else could see, toward a horizon hidden by a roadside gas station. The
pumps in front were large and red and boasted rounded tops that bore the image of a white winged
horse.
He could see his son inside, paying for the gas and for the cream soda and Moon Pie the old man
had requested. The attendant was babbling about something behind the counter, he could see, an idiot
teenager in a white cap that was two sizes too big for him and which pushed down the tops of his ears
so that he looked like a kid playing dress up. He wished the kid would shut up so he could get back on
the road with his son. His head was starting to hurt again and the scent of oranges wafted through the
open window of the cab, although there were no oranges around that he could see.
He knew it was coming, could almost smell it the way he could smell those oranges. It had
happened to him every day for the past month. Some vision, some...almost memory...would play
around in his mind until he thought he would go mad with it, and then his headache would pop like a
balloon and he would take a nap, awake feeling a bit refreshed.
And then the vision would come to fruition just as he pictured it.
For some reason, the maddening scent of oranges always preceded these images.
Today, though, he had a feeling he would not be taking a nap. He just wanted to drive. Put as
many miles as possible between himself and this godforsaken town. He had awoken with a feeling
of....bad. It was the only way to put it. And now he felt antsy, ready to crawl out of his skin in his
eagerness to get away from that feeling.
The sun beat down through the filmy windshield. He took a clean handkerchief from the front
pocket of his tan work pants and swiped at his forehead with it. It came away wet with blood.
The old man blinked and looked down at the square of white cloth again. There was no blood there,
only a spreading dark stain from his perspiration.
"Pop? You okay?"
His son was looking at him through the open driver's side window of the truck, concern etching
lines around his mouth and across his forehead.
"I'm fine. I just want to get going before sundown," he replied roughly. He was immediately sorry
for the anger in his voice when he saw the look on his boy's face, hurt and confused. It wasn't his fault
the old man had visions that scared him so bad he chewed on his pillow at night. He'd thrown away five
pillows in the past four months, all of them mushy with saliva and the feathers all clumped together
from his teeth marks.
"I'm tired, that's all," he said, softer now.
Jake nodded and climbed up into the cab, handing over the cream soda and Moon Pie, which was
half melted from the scorch of the day. The old man didn't mind though. A Moon Pie was a Moon Pie,
way he looked at it.
"I can tell. You ain't been sleepin' so good, have you?"
"No matter. Man gets old, he can count on sleep going the way of strong bones and mind. Mostly
gone forever."
Jake looked over at him and nodded knowingly, as if he knew what it was to be old and know such
a feeling of impotence, as if his bladder kept him up nights and the heat gave him the shakes so bad he
had to lie down in the dark for an hour before he ate just so he could hold the fork steady. Youth, the
old man thought. How strong we think we are when we have it; how the years flit away like a
hummingbird and allow time, that old bald cheater, to catch up to us.
"We should go on back home, Pop," Jake began, but the old man shook his head violently even
though it hurt him to do so.
"I want to go for a drive, I told you. I need to get away from the house for a while. 'Sides, we
haven't done this in a long time, just take a cruise in the afternoon."
Jake tilted his head in that way he always did when he was about to argue. "But it's hotter than the
devil's asshole today and the doctor said you--"
"The doctor, nothin'," the old man said grimly, and touched the rim of the cream soda bottle to his
lips. It was blessedly cool and the soda as sweet as candy, the first sweet thing to touch his tongue in
months. He almost groaned with the pleasure of it. "I'm fine. Got me a drink, don't I? A drink and a
sweet, that's all I need right now. Maybe later I'll sneak me one of them cigarettes you got rolled up in
your shirtsleeve there, if you promise not to tell your mama. Oh yeah, thought I didn't know about 'em,
didn't ya? Well, it takes more than a kid your age to pull one over on your old pop, you should know."
Jake smiled through the blush rising in his cheeks. It was born half of embarrassment and half of
shame, although the old man wasn't angry; Jake could tell that just by the sound of his voice. The fact
of the matter was this, however; the doctor had told them all six months ago that no one was to
smoke around his pop, under any circumstances. It would only make his condition worse and he was
already coughing up blood in the mornings. Jake had walked into the bathroom just yesterday and seen
it floating in the toilet, a wad of phlegm and gray lung matter running through with a crimson thread. He
had flushed the offending lunger without a further thought, simply wanting to get it out of the house,
out of the toilet so he did not have to look at it while he was taking a piss. He thought of it now, that
hunk of his father's cancer, floating in the dirty, foul water of the sewer, past dead rats and fecal matter
and wads of toilet paper. It was where it belonged, he thought, served it right for fucking up his life and
the lives of his mama and Pop. He supposed that was why he went along with whatever the old man
wanted lately. The cancer was eating him alive from the inside out and if the only thing that made him
happy was some sugar and a drive through the country, then by God he would get it.
He hadn't quite been able to chuck the cigarettes, though. The craving set in, especially after a
good meal, and he was powerless to its siren song. It seemed to be calling to him even now from his
shirtsleeve, begging to be lit up, but he didn't dare with Pop in the truck, even with the windows rolled
down.
"I don't know about the smoke, Pop," he said reluctantly, dropping the truck into gear and backing
toward the main road. The transmission wheezed and groaned in complaint but he managed to trundle
it up and onto the gravel anyway. A warm breeze floated through the open windows, lifting the sparse
white hairs away from the old man's forehead and cooling the perspiration that had settled there.
"Mama would kill me if she found out."
"How's she gonna find out? Ain't gonna know unless you tell her, boy, and that'd be downright
stupid."
Jake shot him a glance that was meant to be stern but ended in a laugh despite himself. "Maybe.
We'll see."
The old man grunted and rested his arm on the side of the door. The wind felt so good on his face
he felt like sticking it out the window like a dog and tasting the air as they drove. The thought made him
smile briefly, but then he saw his son lying in the road ahead of them, battered and bloody, his head
almost completely torn from his body and lying on the gravel, attached by a thin gristle of flesh. One
eyeball was hanging out of the socket and lay on his cheek, which had been flayed open to the bone and
lay in two pink flaps across his jaw. His left foot was bare; he had been knocked out of his shoe and
sock, it looked like, leaving the foot itself remarkably untouched.
The old man blinked, hard, and the image was gone. The road was clear, if a little dusty. His son
sat alive and unmarked beside him, blessedly unaware of what his father had just seen.
He had recognized that patch of road, the old man had. It was not actually the road they were on,
but they would be soon enough. It was a crossroads that joined their little town to Briggs. He knew it
well, having traveled it every day of his life from the age of sixteen or so until late last year, when the
coughing had gotten so bad he couldn't bear to keep his mask on for longer than a few minutes at a
time. He couldn't figure which was worse: breathing through coal dust or through the thick phlegm that
had congealed in his lungs once the cancer took over.
The coal mines thrust up against the side of a mountain which had no name, a stark, steep thing
that he had dreaded to see peeking up over the horizon every morning. In the cool light of dawn it
hadn't seemed so bad, but by the time he reached the mouth of the mine the sun was always high in
the sky and seemed to mock him, teasing cruelly with its bright shine as though it knew he wouldn't see
it again until the next morning.
His son was about to die. He knew that as well as he knew the back of his own hand or the sound
of his wife's voice. He hadn't seen himself in the vision, but figured it was just as possible that he was
slated to die as well, and probably would if he didn't do something about it. He didn't know if another
car was involved or not, but he vaguely remembered seeing the truck, the very one they were riding in,
lying on its roof about fifty feet from where Jake had lain in the road.
He had to get them out of the truck without letting anything on to his son. He didn't want to scare
him and, he thought, even if he told him about his vision, would Jake believe him? If the situation were
reversed, he wasn't even sure he'd believe himself. Jake would probably think it was the cancer talking
or some such nonsense and continue down the path towards certain death.
"I want to get out, stretch my legs," the old man said suddenly, not even thinking about what he
was saying, simply grasping for any reason to stop the truck. "Let's go to the creek. You got your
fishin' poles in the back, don't ya?"
"Yeah, but the creek's almost dry this time of year, Pop. It's just been too hot. You could probably
reach in and grab those fish with your bare hands, that's how--"
"I don't care, son, I said I want to stop!" the old man screeched. He felt panic, high and silver, in
the back of his throat. The weeping willow tree that marked the halfway point to the mines was coming
up on their left. If Jake didn't turn onto the road right after that, the next stop would be their final
destination. Death was imminent. He could almost hear the screech and moan of the old truck's gears
as it spun out of control on the loose gravel.
"Okay, Pop, we'll stop. Don't get yourself worked up, now. We'll go to the creek." He reached over
and patted the old man on one gnarled hand, his eyebrows knitted together in concern. He had never
seen him like this before. Either he was in a lot of pain or the heat was getting to him, and Jake knew
the look that came into the old man's eyes when the pain was close to unbearable. It was absent for the
moment and he was glad. It was a glassy, far-away look that he hated. It made him look almost dead,
like a corpse that had learned to breathe, and he could almost see the dead man in his father waiting to
get out. A skeleton with skin stretched over it. He wondered how his mother must feel, having such a
monster in place of her husband, having to bathe him and feed him most days like he was a child. Some
days were better than others, such as today; he'd actually walked out to the truck himself after getting
himself dressed carefully.
But the end result was the same, wasn't it? A withered body bringing burden to his mother and to
himself for another few months before finally cashing it all in, and even then they could not rest. There
would be the funeral to think about and plan. Tracking down family members who had moved out of
state so they could drive back here, to this miserable mining town in Virginia, and pretend they cared
about the death of a man they never really knew to begin with. It all made Jake slightly sick to his
stomach and he moved his head closer to the window, trying to breathe in some fresh air.
It was not fresh. It was hot and carried the stink of the paper mill from across the river, like
burning tires and sulfur and scorched wood.
How he hated this town. His father had grown up here and had decided to raise his little family
here, but Jake had always hated it, was always ready to leave. He had vowed as a young boy that he
would never get stuck here the way Pop had. He wanted to live in a big city, where no one knew him and
he could walk into a bookstore and buy a nudie mag and not have the whole goddam town know about
it. A city that didn't carry the residue of the coal mines or the stench of burning paper in the air.
And now here he was, stuck here for at least as long as it took for his father to die and probably
well after that, since he was expected to stay and help his mother.
He felt his foot grow heavier on the gas pedal.
"Jacob? What in hell are you doing, boy? The turn for the creek is coming up, you'll want to slow
down!"
Jake felt a slow smile spread across his face. Suddenly his stomach felt much better. He had a plan.
Speed things up, he thought. That's all I need. Then I can make a clean break from here and maybe
even make things a bit easier on Mama.
"It's okay, Pop," he said softly, never taking his eyes off the road. "I'm taking a little detour."
The old man felt his eyes grow wider than he had thought possible. The little bastard wasn't going
to listen to him and the result would be worse than he could imagine. Panic welled up in his throat again
and he flailed for the steering wheel in a last ditch effort to yank it to the right, but Jake was strong and
held tight with his left hand. The other hand shot out cat-quick and the old man went reeling against
the passenger side door frame, stunned. The truck fishtailed, the tires spun briefly....and that was all.
Stars whirled around in front of his eyes for a moment before he realized his son had punched him
in the skull. Something warm and sticky slipped down the side of his face and he pulled his handkerchief
out on reflex. He touched it gingerly to the wound and when he pulled it away it came back red.
Fear and anger mixed with indignation until his blood began to boil and he looked at his son with a
dangerous glint in his eyes. The premonitory vision was starting, he realized, but the little shit had
popped him one! Children weren't supposed to hit their parents. It was this simple phrase that he
began to repeat over and over in his head to keep the fear at bay, until it became a talisman of sorts, a
rosary of worry beads that he fingered mentally.
Children weren't supposed to hit their parents. Children weren't supposed to hit their parents.
"What are you doing?" he asked finally. His voice was low and pleasant, almost conversational. Jake
didn't notice. He was too busy plotting how he would make his father's death look like a tragic accident,
perhaps a drowning as they walked one last time by the river or a sudden trip over a rock on the
slippery creek bank.
"Don't worry, Pop. Just sit back and relax."
A maniacal light had entered his eyes, the old man noticed. Jake was concentrating so hard on the
road ahead that the old man was able to slowly bring his seat belt forward and ease it across his lap. He
feinted a coughing fit in order to snap the buckle home without Jake hearing the click of metal against
metal.
He watched the scenery pass by outside the truck, the trees becoming a blur as Jake sped up,
eager to get to his destination. The sun slanted through the leaves, as beautiful as a painting or some
other work of art. The old man took all of it in with a sadness he hadn't felt since learning he had cancer
and waited until he saw the right tree before he made his move. It was a big one, old and gnarled from
the passage of time and weather. It stood alone just at the side of the road, and it was coming up fast.
Jake was so consumed in his own thoughts and with trying to keep the truck on the slippery gravel
road that the old man took him by surprise, which was just what he wanted. The steering wheel felt
slimy in his hand, slick with his son's sweat, but he managed to hold onto it anyway and yanked it hard
to the right.
It was too late for Jacob to even reach for his seatbelt. The tree seemed so big, so impossibly
there, and the old man closed his eyes as it became even bigger and the world turned upside down.
Late afternoon sunlight poured through the leaves above, creating lovely leaf lights that fluttered
around the old man's ankles. Broken safety glass glittered here and there in the road, sparkled in Jake's
hair. What was left of it. The old man sat in the grass beside the road, chewing on a sprig of mint he'd
pulled off the tree.
The truck was on its roof behind him. His boy was in pieces in front of him, splayed on the road like
an unfortunate animal.
The old man had a broken ankle to show for his trouble. It didn't hurt him much. Compared to the
cancer, it wasn't bad at all. He figured he could wait for someone passing by to give him a lift back to
the house; the truck certainly wasn't drivable. It had only been about twenty minutes since the accident.
Someone would come along soon enough, he reckoned. Someone always did. And he had the cigarettes
to help him pass the time, anyway. Three perfectly rolled smokes that he had unfolded from his boy's
shirtsleeve.
Funny, the old man thought. The wreck hadn't damaged them at all.
written by:
Amanda Crum
The old man sat in the cab of his son's beat up blue Ford pickup, gazing longingly out the window
at something which no one else could see, toward a horizon hidden by a roadside gas station. The
pumps in front were large and red and boasted rounded tops that bore the image of a white winged
horse.
He could see his son inside, paying for the gas and for the cream soda and Moon Pie the old man
had requested. The attendant was babbling about something behind the counter, he could see, an idiot
teenager in a white cap that was two sizes too big for him and which pushed down the tops of his ears
so that he looked like a kid playing dress up. He wished the kid would shut up so he could get back on
the road with his son. His head was starting to hurt again and the scent of oranges wafted through the
open window of the cab, although there were no oranges around that he could see.
He knew it was coming, could almost smell it the way he could smell those oranges. It had
happened to him every day for the past month. Some vision, some...almost memory...would play
around in his mind until he thought he would go mad with it, and then his headache would pop like a
balloon and he would take a nap, awake feeling a bit refreshed.
And then the vision would come to fruition just as he pictured it.
For some reason, the maddening scent of oranges always preceded these images.
Today, though, he had a feeling he would not be taking a nap. He just wanted to drive. Put as
many miles as possible between himself and this godforsaken town. He had awoken with a feeling
of....bad. It was the only way to put it. And now he felt antsy, ready to crawl out of his skin in his
eagerness to get away from that feeling.
The sun beat down through the filmy windshield. He took a clean handkerchief from the front
pocket of his tan work pants and swiped at his forehead with it. It came away wet with blood.
The old man blinked and looked down at the square of white cloth again. There was no blood there,
only a spreading dark stain from his perspiration.
"Pop? You okay?"
His son was looking at him through the open driver's side window of the truck, concern etching
lines around his mouth and across his forehead.
"I'm fine. I just want to get going before sundown," he replied roughly. He was immediately sorry
for the anger in his voice when he saw the look on his boy's face, hurt and confused. It wasn't his fault
the old man had visions that scared him so bad he chewed on his pillow at night. He'd thrown away five
pillows in the past four months, all of them mushy with saliva and the feathers all clumped together
from his teeth marks.
"I'm tired, that's all," he said, softer now.
Jake nodded and climbed up into the cab, handing over the cream soda and Moon Pie, which was
half melted from the scorch of the day. The old man didn't mind though. A Moon Pie was a Moon Pie,
way he looked at it.
"I can tell. You ain't been sleepin' so good, have you?"
"No matter. Man gets old, he can count on sleep going the way of strong bones and mind. Mostly
gone forever."
Jake looked over at him and nodded knowingly, as if he knew what it was to be old and know such
a feeling of impotence, as if his bladder kept him up nights and the heat gave him the shakes so bad he
had to lie down in the dark for an hour before he ate just so he could hold the fork steady. Youth, the
old man thought. How strong we think we are when we have it; how the years flit away like a
hummingbird and allow time, that old bald cheater, to catch up to us.
"We should go on back home, Pop," Jake began, but the old man shook his head violently even
though it hurt him to do so.
"I want to go for a drive, I told you. I need to get away from the house for a while. 'Sides, we
haven't done this in a long time, just take a cruise in the afternoon."
Jake tilted his head in that way he always did when he was about to argue. "But it's hotter than the
devil's asshole today and the doctor said you--"
"The doctor, nothin'," the old man said grimly, and touched the rim of the cream soda bottle to his
lips. It was blessedly cool and the soda as sweet as candy, the first sweet thing to touch his tongue in
months. He almost groaned with the pleasure of it. "I'm fine. Got me a drink, don't I? A drink and a
sweet, that's all I need right now. Maybe later I'll sneak me one of them cigarettes you got rolled up in
your shirtsleeve there, if you promise not to tell your mama. Oh yeah, thought I didn't know about 'em,
didn't ya? Well, it takes more than a kid your age to pull one over on your old pop, you should know."
Jake smiled through the blush rising in his cheeks. It was born half of embarrassment and half of
shame, although the old man wasn't angry; Jake could tell that just by the sound of his voice. The fact
of the matter was this, however; the doctor had told them all six months ago that no one was to
smoke around his pop, under any circumstances. It would only make his condition worse and he was
already coughing up blood in the mornings. Jake had walked into the bathroom just yesterday and seen
it floating in the toilet, a wad of phlegm and gray lung matter running through with a crimson thread. He
had flushed the offending lunger without a further thought, simply wanting to get it out of the house,
out of the toilet so he did not have to look at it while he was taking a piss. He thought of it now, that
hunk of his father's cancer, floating in the dirty, foul water of the sewer, past dead rats and fecal matter
and wads of toilet paper. It was where it belonged, he thought, served it right for fucking up his life and
the lives of his mama and Pop. He supposed that was why he went along with whatever the old man
wanted lately. The cancer was eating him alive from the inside out and if the only thing that made him
happy was some sugar and a drive through the country, then by God he would get it.
He hadn't quite been able to chuck the cigarettes, though. The craving set in, especially after a
good meal, and he was powerless to its siren song. It seemed to be calling to him even now from his
shirtsleeve, begging to be lit up, but he didn't dare with Pop in the truck, even with the windows rolled
down.
"I don't know about the smoke, Pop," he said reluctantly, dropping the truck into gear and backing
toward the main road. The transmission wheezed and groaned in complaint but he managed to trundle
it up and onto the gravel anyway. A warm breeze floated through the open windows, lifting the sparse
white hairs away from the old man's forehead and cooling the perspiration that had settled there.
"Mama would kill me if she found out."
"How's she gonna find out? Ain't gonna know unless you tell her, boy, and that'd be downright
stupid."
Jake shot him a glance that was meant to be stern but ended in a laugh despite himself. "Maybe.
We'll see."
The old man grunted and rested his arm on the side of the door. The wind felt so good on his face
he felt like sticking it out the window like a dog and tasting the air as they drove. The thought made him
smile briefly, but then he saw his son lying in the road ahead of them, battered and bloody, his head
almost completely torn from his body and lying on the gravel, attached by a thin gristle of flesh. One
eyeball was hanging out of the socket and lay on his cheek, which had been flayed open to the bone and
lay in two pink flaps across his jaw. His left foot was bare; he had been knocked out of his shoe and
sock, it looked like, leaving the foot itself remarkably untouched.
The old man blinked, hard, and the image was gone. The road was clear, if a little dusty. His son
sat alive and unmarked beside him, blessedly unaware of what his father had just seen.
He had recognized that patch of road, the old man had. It was not actually the road they were on,
but they would be soon enough. It was a crossroads that joined their little town to Briggs. He knew it
well, having traveled it every day of his life from the age of sixteen or so until late last year, when the
coughing had gotten so bad he couldn't bear to keep his mask on for longer than a few minutes at a
time. He couldn't figure which was worse: breathing through coal dust or through the thick phlegm that
had congealed in his lungs once the cancer took over.
The coal mines thrust up against the side of a mountain which had no name, a stark, steep thing
that he had dreaded to see peeking up over the horizon every morning. In the cool light of dawn it
hadn't seemed so bad, but by the time he reached the mouth of the mine the sun was always high in
the sky and seemed to mock him, teasing cruelly with its bright shine as though it knew he wouldn't see
it again until the next morning.
His son was about to die. He knew that as well as he knew the back of his own hand or the sound
of his wife's voice. He hadn't seen himself in the vision, but figured it was just as possible that he was
slated to die as well, and probably would if he didn't do something about it. He didn't know if another
car was involved or not, but he vaguely remembered seeing the truck, the very one they were riding in,
lying on its roof about fifty feet from where Jake had lain in the road.
He had to get them out of the truck without letting anything on to his son. He didn't want to scare
him and, he thought, even if he told him about his vision, would Jake believe him? If the situation were
reversed, he wasn't even sure he'd believe himself. Jake would probably think it was the cancer talking
or some such nonsense and continue down the path towards certain death.
"I want to get out, stretch my legs," the old man said suddenly, not even thinking about what he
was saying, simply grasping for any reason to stop the truck. "Let's go to the creek. You got your
fishin' poles in the back, don't ya?"
"Yeah, but the creek's almost dry this time of year, Pop. It's just been too hot. You could probably
reach in and grab those fish with your bare hands, that's how--"
"I don't care, son, I said I want to stop!" the old man screeched. He felt panic, high and silver, in
the back of his throat. The weeping willow tree that marked the halfway point to the mines was coming
up on their left. If Jake didn't turn onto the road right after that, the next stop would be their final
destination. Death was imminent. He could almost hear the screech and moan of the old truck's gears
as it spun out of control on the loose gravel.
"Okay, Pop, we'll stop. Don't get yourself worked up, now. We'll go to the creek." He reached over
and patted the old man on one gnarled hand, his eyebrows knitted together in concern. He had never
seen him like this before. Either he was in a lot of pain or the heat was getting to him, and Jake knew
the look that came into the old man's eyes when the pain was close to unbearable. It was absent for the
moment and he was glad. It was a glassy, far-away look that he hated. It made him look almost dead,
like a corpse that had learned to breathe, and he could almost see the dead man in his father waiting to
get out. A skeleton with skin stretched over it. He wondered how his mother must feel, having such a
monster in place of her husband, having to bathe him and feed him most days like he was a child. Some
days were better than others, such as today; he'd actually walked out to the truck himself after getting
himself dressed carefully.
But the end result was the same, wasn't it? A withered body bringing burden to his mother and to
himself for another few months before finally cashing it all in, and even then they could not rest. There
would be the funeral to think about and plan. Tracking down family members who had moved out of
state so they could drive back here, to this miserable mining town in Virginia, and pretend they cared
about the death of a man they never really knew to begin with. It all made Jake slightly sick to his
stomach and he moved his head closer to the window, trying to breathe in some fresh air.
It was not fresh. It was hot and carried the stink of the paper mill from across the river, like
burning tires and sulfur and scorched wood.
How he hated this town. His father had grown up here and had decided to raise his little family
here, but Jake had always hated it, was always ready to leave. He had vowed as a young boy that he
would never get stuck here the way Pop had. He wanted to live in a big city, where no one knew him and
he could walk into a bookstore and buy a nudie mag and not have the whole goddam town know about
it. A city that didn't carry the residue of the coal mines or the stench of burning paper in the air.
And now here he was, stuck here for at least as long as it took for his father to die and probably
well after that, since he was expected to stay and help his mother.
He felt his foot grow heavier on the gas pedal.
"Jacob? What in hell are you doing, boy? The turn for the creek is coming up, you'll want to slow
down!"
Jake felt a slow smile spread across his face. Suddenly his stomach felt much better. He had a plan.
Speed things up, he thought. That's all I need. Then I can make a clean break from here and maybe
even make things a bit easier on Mama.
"It's okay, Pop," he said softly, never taking his eyes off the road. "I'm taking a little detour."
The old man felt his eyes grow wider than he had thought possible. The little bastard wasn't going
to listen to him and the result would be worse than he could imagine. Panic welled up in his throat again
and he flailed for the steering wheel in a last ditch effort to yank it to the right, but Jake was strong and
held tight with his left hand. The other hand shot out cat-quick and the old man went reeling against
the passenger side door frame, stunned. The truck fishtailed, the tires spun briefly....and that was all.
Stars whirled around in front of his eyes for a moment before he realized his son had punched him
in the skull. Something warm and sticky slipped down the side of his face and he pulled his handkerchief
out on reflex. He touched it gingerly to the wound and when he pulled it away it came back red.
Fear and anger mixed with indignation until his blood began to boil and he looked at his son with a
dangerous glint in his eyes. The premonitory vision was starting, he realized, but the little shit had
popped him one! Children weren't supposed to hit their parents. It was this simple phrase that he
began to repeat over and over in his head to keep the fear at bay, until it became a talisman of sorts, a
rosary of worry beads that he fingered mentally.
Children weren't supposed to hit their parents. Children weren't supposed to hit their parents.
"What are you doing?" he asked finally. His voice was low and pleasant, almost conversational. Jake
didn't notice. He was too busy plotting how he would make his father's death look like a tragic accident,
perhaps a drowning as they walked one last time by the river or a sudden trip over a rock on the
slippery creek bank.
"Don't worry, Pop. Just sit back and relax."
A maniacal light had entered his eyes, the old man noticed. Jake was concentrating so hard on the
road ahead that the old man was able to slowly bring his seat belt forward and ease it across his lap. He
feinted a coughing fit in order to snap the buckle home without Jake hearing the click of metal against
metal.
He watched the scenery pass by outside the truck, the trees becoming a blur as Jake sped up,
eager to get to his destination. The sun slanted through the leaves, as beautiful as a painting or some
other work of art. The old man took all of it in with a sadness he hadn't felt since learning he had cancer
and waited until he saw the right tree before he made his move. It was a big one, old and gnarled from
the passage of time and weather. It stood alone just at the side of the road, and it was coming up fast.
Jake was so consumed in his own thoughts and with trying to keep the truck on the slippery gravel
road that the old man took him by surprise, which was just what he wanted. The steering wheel felt
slimy in his hand, slick with his son's sweat, but he managed to hold onto it anyway and yanked it hard
to the right.
It was too late for Jacob to even reach for his seatbelt. The tree seemed so big, so impossibly
there, and the old man closed his eyes as it became even bigger and the world turned upside down.
Late afternoon sunlight poured through the leaves above, creating lovely leaf lights that fluttered
around the old man's ankles. Broken safety glass glittered here and there in the road, sparkled in Jake's
hair. What was left of it. The old man sat in the grass beside the road, chewing on a sprig of mint he'd
pulled off the tree.
The truck was on its roof behind him. His boy was in pieces in front of him, splayed on the road like
an unfortunate animal.
The old man had a broken ankle to show for his trouble. It didn't hurt him much. Compared to the
cancer, it wasn't bad at all. He figured he could wait for someone passing by to give him a lift back to
the house; the truck certainly wasn't drivable. It had only been about twenty minutes since the accident.
Someone would come along soon enough, he reckoned. Someone always did. And he had the cigarettes
to help him pass the time, anyway. Three perfectly rolled smokes that he had unfolded from his boy's
shirtsleeve.
Funny, the old man thought. The wreck hadn't damaged them at all.
