I know it's not Friday, but my goal to to publish a story every Friday. I'm a bit behind. This is an oldie I wrote a while ago. Enjoy! TITLE: Are You Going to Piss on the Grave?
Linda was angry to say the least, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her. Her anger. She had a bone to pick and fish to fry and all that nonsense. Nothing was going to stop her. She had driven far too long to get to this point. This point being her mother’s grave. Not even Kevin could stop her.
The journey began, really eased into itself, in Palm Springs, CA. After a two hour trip to Arizona, they stopped in the small town of Rock, where they had a shop with every kind of crystal one could imagine. Hippies from all over the area went there for their various minerals, some supposed to be healing or energizing or simply pretty. Then a stopover in Tuscan. There they stayed in a tiny hotel next to a graveyard. The hotel was chee-ap, but scary. Neither she nor Kevin had slept (so he said) because of a trucker and his ‘ho next door. But the worst was Kevin, who had terrible allergies. He scratched and snored the entire night leaving Linda with only a few hours sleep.
The next morning, bright and early, they left and made it to some hot springs in the middle of New Mexico. They asked the sassy southern women at the door if they could bath in the springs nude. The aging woman, with bleached blond hair, looked up, “Well, I don’t mind if you take off your clothes. But it only takes one crazy person to come here and throw a hissy fit. You might want to leave your swimsuits on.”
Then that night in Las Cruces, they had stayed with Linda’s good friend Janet, a successful real estate agent. They treated their hosts to lunch and dinner (it would have been cheaper to simply stay at a hotel, thought Linda) and finally had made it to her mother’s grave in west Texas with this truck to give her nephew. Linda had the truck from her dead father. She wasn’t using it and her nephew, who lived in Texas, needed a car as he had just turned sixteen. And this is why Linda was determined to play it cool.
Why did I marry a buffoon? Is all she could think. It was love in the time of chlorine, or whatever that novel was called. Love. Geeeeesh! I mean, really, she was thinking. Wasn’t there some research or some bullshit that said people in love actually become mentally insane while going through all that. Then they wake up one day and they’re married and they think, “My God. What was I thinking?” Like that old Saturday Night Live Skit. “Linda, what were you thinking?”
“Uh. Honey. Please don’t say that. She was my mother.”
“Just joking. I’m going to walk across the street there and get some peach pie.”
“Ok. I’m going to sit here a little while.”
Linda’s sister, Jolene (not her real name) had put up two mini Christmas trees, which were now dying in the Texas heat, a few painted rocks that said things like “Love” and “Hope” around the grave and a plaster paris angel. The whole thing looked a bit like a kindergarten classroom, which Jolene (not her real name) taught.
Linda meditated for a few minutes on the grave and talked to her mother. Everything is OK, Mom. I miss you. You were here. You mattered. All that stuff that people say at their parents’ graves, trying not to think about the rotting bones and dust the person is becoming. Just looking at the earth. The soft earth. The gravesite sat on the highway in a very small Texas town named Menard. A nice breeze was blowing and Linda felt oddly good, except that she had planned to divorce Kevin when she got back to California. Or was she just tired and cranky?
She looked across the highway where Kevin had disappeared. I guess that’s it Mom. Gotta get this truck to Jolene (not her real name). Linda crossed the street and went into the café. It was actually cute for such a small town. Homemade pies, brownies and fig bars sat behind glass. A nice selection of fresh salads were on the menu and the restaurant had been written up in several nearby newspapers as one of the places not to miss in the area. These articles were posted and framed on the walls.
“Are you ready or do you want to eat here?” Linda asked.
Kevin looked up, with pie filling on his lips. “Let’s eat here.”Kevin had his usual hamburger and fries. Anything on the menu that was unhealthy, Kevin would eat. He always described it as “yummy”. Linda liked to eat healthy, but with Kevin around it was nearly impossible. He always insisted that they go for Pizza Hut or McDonald’s or someplace where it was difficult to eat healthy, or the good food was simply too tempting to resist. Linda didn’t mind. She remembered a poem or something she saw on the New York City subway many years ago. It said, “I am a woman and I will always have something to do”. God. Truer words were never spoken. And even though she knew in her heart it was all bullshit, relationships, she was simply more flexible than Kevin. Women, thought Linda, were flexible. Always putting others’ needs before their own. It’s just the way it is. I could make a fuss, start an argument, have my own way, she thought. Kevin would give in. But it was simply easier to go along with what he did. Why make waves. To make waves required effort and wasn’t there already enough effort in her life?
“Honey, we need to get going. I told Jolene, not her real name, that we would try to be there by three.”
Kevin got up to pay the bill and they walked out into the parking lot. It was hotter now, even though it had only been 25 minutes that they were inside. Linda wiped some sweat from her scalp, opened the door and started the bright red truck. She was shaking and almost dreading seeing her sister. The truck was cramped to say the least and not a comfortable ride at all. But it was running OK and they drove about an hour until reaching the tiny town of Jasper, TX. They got out of the car and into the trailer, where Jolene lived.
The dogs Silky Nay and Hunter barked, but both were too tiny to do much damage. Jolene came out and the two sisters hugged. They both shouted, “Hey Girl. Not-her-real-name!”
Jolene never bothered to clean the house, they were sisters after all, and Linda hated sleeping there. The sheets were always dirty and the bathroom had hair clogging the drain, not mention soap scum around the tubs. Kevin plopped on the couch and turned on the TV.
“Well, I see you’ve been working hard. Cleaning non stop.”
Jolene simply rolled her eyes and handed Linda a beer. “Did you stop by Mom’s grave?”
“I sure did.”
“Yeah I put some rocks and things on there.”
“I saw.”
“Do you have the keys for the truck?”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I don’t think I’m giving you the truck.”
There was a sudden and awkward pause, as if someone had just scratched a record on a vinyl LP record, as if a cliché that happened in a Hollywood movie.
Kevin said, “What? We’ve come all this way.”
“It’s the diamond.”
“What are you…”
“The diamond. “Linda pulled out a diamond that had been her mother’s. “This is mom’s diamond. It’s fake one. You kept the real one.”
“I…”
It was true. Jolene was always a thief. Granted she had to raise two kids as a single mother on a teacher’s salary. But still. It was the principle.
All Jolene could say was, “I….”
“So I’m keeping the truck. “
Kevin, said, “Honey. We drove all this way. I…”
“You can fly back. I’ll pay for it. I already bought you a ticket. I’m driving home. Alone. Goodbye.”
Linda walked out the door. She was calm. She started the truck and never looked back.