I figured, since my very old blog is no longer up and running, that it was time to repost this short story I wrote for the site. Reading it again, now… I actually still really dig it. Let me know what you think.A few weeks ago, the incredibly talented Dave White invited me to participate in the 2nd Annual Blog Project. The basic idea is that me (and a ton of other talented writers) get a “story starter” and have to create a story based on that starter. We get to see how many different stories can come from the same basic starting idea. This year’s story starter: to come up with a story that involved an item that was at one point in a police auction or tell the story of how that item got to the police auction. So, there you have it. Please take a few minutes to check out my story below, take a few more minutes to check out all the other wonderful writer’s stories, and let us know what you think.
“Now You Can See”
This past evening, at the dinner table, Sonya stuck her fork into my eye, and as she released the fork protruding from my face and plopped back down in her chair she said, “Now you can see how I see, bitch!” I had no idea, at the time, what she could have meant by that line, but it was enough for me to ask her to leave.
“Fuck, yeah, I’ll leave,” she says. “I’ve been waiting for a reason to bolt on your sorry ass for weeks now.” She pushes away from the table and tosses her chair to the floor. The fork in my eye is pulsing now and I can feel a headache coming on. “Where the fuck have you been?”
I wonder where the fuck I’ve been and imagine that she’s probably right. I have no clue where I’ve been and I’m not quite sure what we’re doing together anyway.
I get up from the table, grab a dishtowel from the kitchen sink, and wrap it around the fork to apply pressure, trying to slow the bleeding. I can’t see worth shit with one eye and I stumble toward the bedroom where she’s already packing.
“Probably best this way,” I say as I fall through the door. I push myself off the floor with one hand (the other is, obviously, holding the towel in place over the fork that’s poked out my eye) and sit against the wall. “I mean, you leaving and all.”
She drops some clothes into her suitcase, open on the bed, turns for a second, and shoots me a cockeyed glance. “Who the fuck are you?” she asks and resumes packing. A cheap chuckle seeps out the corner of her mouth and, though I can’t see her face from where I’m sitting (especially with one good eye), I know she’s wearing that “you’re so fucking stupid” smirk.
“Yeah,” I say as if I know exactly what she’s thinking. “I really don’t have a clue.”
The towel is soaked now and my hand is covered in blood. I’m starting to feel a little weak and could use some help getting to the bathroom. I could use a little assistance grabbing another towel for my eye. Maybe even some help dialing 911, but I’m not sure the hospital is really where I want to go at the moment.
I toss the bloody towel across the room toward Sonya and it lands on the floor by her feet.
“You think…”
“Don’t even fucking bother asking for help.” She keeps packing and kicks the blood soaked rag across the floor, back at me. “You deserved that fucking fork in your eye and you can’t expect me to help you remove it, clean it, or stop the pain.”
“But I can’t…”
She throws the last bit of clothes into her suitcase, zips it up, stands up to stretch, and laughs hard, her back arched and her arms stretched far out to the side. “Did you really think I’d help you?” She laughs again. “You’ve really got a fucking problem, Steven. You know that?”
“My problem,” I say, growing angrier as she inches toward actually leaving, “is that I have a fork stuck in my fucking eye.” I grab the bedroom door’s handle and pull myself up, careful not to fall right back down in my spot on the floor. “Is it so much to ask for a little medical help before you leave me for good?”
“Yes,” she says and picks up the suitcase. “It is.” She steps around me, careful not to get any of my blood on her black boots, and stomps through the hallway. “It’s more than I can do. I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation with you.”
“So don’t,” I say as I stumble into the bathroom.
“Don’t what?”
“Have this conversation with me.”
I slam the bathroom door and fall over, grabbing the side of the toilet before I hit the floor with a thud. The linoleum is cold against my cheek and, with my one good eye, I can see her feet pacing back and forth outside the door.
“What the fuck are you waiting for?” I ask her. My jaw is starting to tighten and the salty taste of my own blood is creeping into my mouth. “If you’re not going to help me, then why don’t you just get the fuck out?”
“Are you fucking crazy, Steven?” I wonder if she’s just explained this entire situation in five words. “Did you really think I’d take off without it?”
I’m beginning to lose feeling in the right side of my face, and the idea of her leaving at all stings. My teeth chatter as the blood begins to paint them red, like I’d just eaten a lollipop. I honestly have no clue what she’s talking about.
“Sonya, sweetie, I have no…”
“The fucking fork, Steven.” Her head makes a thump as she leans into the door. “It’s part of the set we spent years trying to track down, remember?”
Vaguely, but now that my head is spinning, I’m having trouble remembering my fucking name.
“Listen,” I mumble through the bubbles of blood forming in my mouth, “I’m really getting woozy in here. Do you think…”
“The set your mother had in the trunk of her car the night she decided that another sip wouldn’t kill her.” She jiggles the handle of the door, trying to pry her way in. My head’s in the way and I don’t think I can actually move it at this point. “The set that got impounded right along with the car and everything else in it.”
“I remember now, Sonya. Thank you for the painful trip down memory lane. I appreciate it.” I look up at her with my good eye, her head peaking through the door. “Now, do you think you can help me out here so you can have your precious fucking fork back?”
She helps me up from the floor, sits me against the wall, and hands me a dirty pair of underwear to hold over the forked eye.
“That set was the first thing we owned in this house,” I tell her. “I didn’t care what I had to pay to get it back.”
“You were worried though,” she says. “That old bluehair looked like she might go all the way. Her whole life savings at a fucking police auction.”
“On a stupid, fucking silverware set,” I say.
“On a stupid, fucking silverware set,” she repeats and tilts my head back.
She pulls the hair out of her eyes and looks at me, worried for the first time since she’d plunged the fork into my face. She puts her hands over mine and pushes down on the bloody underwear. “You just sit there and put pressure on your eye. I’ll go call 911.”
“You’re not leaving, are you?”
“No,” she tells me without even bothering to look back.
I never even cared about the car. They could have the pile of shit. Let old bluehair and her bingo gals pool their money and buy it. I only wanted that silverware. The same set we bought when we first moved here. The same fucking set my mother loaded into the trunk of her car after another completely fucked Thanksgiving dinner. The same exact motherfucking set that ended up scattered all over the trunk when the car eventually came to a stop after crossing the median and ruining someone’s life.
When it eventually came up for auction, along with my mother’s blue Dodge murder weapon, the set had been completely reassembled. The knives were spotless, the spoons were shining, and the forks gleamed across the auction hall. It was perfect, and it was ours, but the Pine’s Valley Police Department didn’t care. It was in the car so it belonged to them. I’d have paid anything to get it back.
I’m still leaning against the bathroom wall, my feet hugging the toilet bowl to keep my balance, and across the hall I can hear Sonya explaining the situation to the dispatcher.
“Yes,” she says slowly for the third time, “a fork in his eye.”
I hear the phone beep off as she pads across the floor. My head is pounding and I’m not sure how much longer I can hold it up on my own.
“They said they’ll be here in a few minutes.” Sonya drops the toilet seat cover and sits down. She takes the bloody underwear out of my hands and replaces them with another dishtowel. “It’s okay,” she says as she puts pressure on the wound and I let my hands drop to my sides.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
“For what?” she asks. “You don’t even know what I was pissed about.” She tilts her head to clear the hair from her eyes. “You don’t even know why I stuck this fucking fork in your face.”
“I know,” I say.
“Where were you, Steven?” She’s slipping off the toilet and decides to sit next to me on the floor. “I’m not fucking stupid, you know. I could smell you and I could just fucking see it when you came home.” She pushes the towel down even harder, digging the fork deeper into my eye socket. “You’re just fucking like her, Steven. Just fucking like her.”
And this floors me because she’s right. She knew exactly where I was and exactly how I got home, and I know instantly, as those words come out of her mouth, that I deserved that fork in my eye. If we’d been in the kitchen as she said them, I would have shoved every fucking fork we own into my face.
“I got off easy this time,” I say as I struggle to keep my one good eye open. The ambulance should be here soon, but I’m just about done for. “You did the right thing.”
“I know,” she says as the doorbell rings over and over again. “I couldn’t help it.”
She takes my hands and places them over the bloody dishtowel. “That should be them. Hold this while I get the door.”
My hands are soaked with blood and I’m freezing on that damned linoleum floor. I can only hold on tight and hope they can save the right side of my face. I don’t expect to see out of that eye anymore, but I’m okay with that. I’ve got all the sight I’ll ever need.
The last things I hear before my good eye closes, and I start to drift off, are the sounds of boots trampling across the hallway, the slow, solid rhythm of my breathing, and Sonya’s muffled voice telling them not to lose that fucking fork.
Copyright by Scott Neumyer
Sometimes, you just have to realize that it’s time to make a tough decision. Today, I made one of the toughest decisions that I’ve had to make in a long time.
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