A Short Story #1

A SHORT STORY #1

by

BRYAN WILLIAM MYERS

She drove with a daggered tooth in her hand. No, it was jagged. Ra, ra, ra. She had that mantra going on in her brain. She wanted to begin again at something real. And she was very tired of the all-too-common novel way of internalizing everything. In other words, she wanted to be free.

Freedom for her meant really letting go.

Why had she pulled out her own tooth?

It was loose, of course. And what were you supposed to do with teeth that were loose? YOU PULLED THEM OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MOUTH. THAT'S WHAT.

AHHH, she screamed. In her head or outside of it. That didn't really matter anymore.

AHHH, stop talking to me.

She wretched forward or wrenched forward, either way, she was breaking the law. She was breaking many laws. Maybe. There was a dog barking at her side, bloody murder. And there was a shallow knocking sound at the back of her brain. It was the door. The door to somewhere else. Drugs. The drugs were working. Or maybe they weren't?

Jennifer jerked the wheel to the right and her and Sparkplug felt the momentum of a broken heart. David had broken up with Jennifer because she was as crazy as an empty pool in Los Angeles in the bright and eternal sunshine of the West Coast. He had said that he would always be true to her. But maybe he had just been full of shit.

AHHH, she screamed. Sparkplug barked and barked and howled and screeched and whined. And the two of them went sideways into a wide ditch of brown and mustard-colored grass. The grass was dead and the sunshine made Jennifer feel like she was diseased. Blood dripped down from her forehead. Sparkplug moaned, attempting to lick Jennifer's face. She pushed the dog away from her and she clasped the tooth, her tooth. In her left hand.

The ring was still on her finger.

Damn it. Damn it, David. You said you'd be here for me. I needed you. I needed your help. You held me. I cried. I read articles about women who were trafficked illegally from Asia to Europe and they were helpless like me. And I cried. And you touched me, soothed me, set me on the right path, somewhat. I wanted you. I needed you, too. I suffered. You didn't care. What happened to me? What happened to us?

AHHH, she screamed.

She hit the steering wheel with both of her fists, she cried and whined and scratched herself, her own skin. Drawing more blood. Maybe she was finally growing up. She was at least trying to do that. Maybe for the first time. She wasn't sure.

Instead, she was busy with something else. And she dropped the tooth to the floor. It was a jagged, ragged tooth. Surrounded, almost, by dried blood. Blood dripping down her nose. Sparkplug, a dog she shared with David.

Jesus. She had kidnapped the dog.

***

Hemingway said to write one true sentence. Andy started writing in his vintage typewriter about his girlfriend who had just escaped with his dog. Their dog. Andy and Jennifer's black Labrador. It was only a puppy, maybe six or seven weeks old.

Andy was blasting an old Get Up Kids record through his amplifier and stereo speakers placed on the floor of his second-floor apartment, an apartment he shared with Jennifer. He still had the speakers and the amplifier from when he used to be a sound man in and around New York City. Together with Jen, Andy had moved across the country.

"The end of a big fight doesn't matter anymore..."

Andy like Hemingway had said was sitting down to bleed.

"The finale we had planned... But hours pass like years."

"I wish you were here."

***

She was reaching for something underneath the driver's seat when she heard the sirens. She couldn't find it and then she started screaming, and screaming.

"He hit me!" She pounded the wheel with her fists, shaking her hair around her bloodied face. She tilted her head back, felt her neck and chin—the tears hot and streaming down her face. It was truly an L.A. scene. Almost like something out of a movie. Only there was no audience save Sparkplug. And Jennifer couldn't find the fucking gun.

***

Vintage typewriter. Afterglow of L.A. sunset. Orange, purple. And pure. The dog was gone. Jen was gone. Their love was finished. Like a bad TV show. That's what it was—that's what their life had become. But this was serious, he thought and felt it. What should I say? How do I want to be remembered?

The two of them, Jen and Andy, had read too many books. They had seen too many movies, too many plays. They were up to their ears and necks in culture. New York City. Broadway. Los Angeles. That hot fucking sunshine, every day. Every stupid move they had made up to this point, it was all too much. That's what was going through Andy's head when he put the paper into his vintage typewriter. The truth was that Andy was a shitty writer. His talent was half-assed and L.A. was making him lazy and it was going to his head. A minor taste of "success". But then, nothing he had ever done was truly very successful. So that's why Jen had wanted to buy a dog.

He had all these thoughts going on in his bean, Andy did. What could he possibly write to Jen in a suicide letter?

The gun was locked away. Safely. You might even say that the gun was locked safely away. But as I've said before, Andy was a shitty writer.

***

David or Andy. She couldn’t remember his name anymore. And it’s not like that mattered.

Where was that gun? Where was that fucking gun?

She reached for it. She knew it was there. She had put it there before she left. And even though she was nearly out of her mind, she knew it and felt it. The gun would be there.

Leaning forward, tears pouring from the center of her soul. Everything had turned to shit. The dog was hysterical. The clouds were laughing at her.

“Son of a bitch!” She screamed, snot coming out of her nostrils. Hot. Everything was steaming up the windows in the car and the broken windshield mirrored her mind. The dog coughed and spat. Smoke billowing out of the back of the car. The front of the car was like a broken mule. Its nose was ruined for life. Nothing good could possibly come from this break-up, Jen assured herself. And then she found it.

She felt the cool metal against her heated flesh. Red painted fingernails.

She grabbed the gun and without thinking placed it gently against the bottom of her chin.

Then she blew her fucking brains out all over that fucking car.

It was David’s car. Or Andy’s.

Whatever the hell his name was.

***

He knew the gun wasn’t in there.

He was a coward.

Truly.

His muscles ached and throbbed. And his heartbeat began to race. It was almost like he wanted to get somewhere but he knew, instinctively, that he’d never get there. Everything he had ever wanted in his entire life had been the relationship he had with Jen. And now.

She was gone.

He sat there. Pathetically.

Inside, he felt that he should get up to check the safe. But he knew what he would find.

Before long, the cops would be on their way.

And everything up to that point in his life would have been a waste.

The dog. What had she done with the dog?

It whimpered in the back of his mind. Licking her wrists.

Jesus.

There was nothing left of her.

And it had been entirely his fault.

He blamed his shitty lack of talent on her.

Jennifer would become a pile of ashes.

And there was nothing left but a song in the back of his mind. Forever. He cried.

The cops pulled up to his house. It had taken them a little bit.

As he heard the sirens wailing, he thought of L.A. And New York. Everything in between. The entire country was out of whack. And they were a part of the misfortune. They had done this to themselves.

He walked over to the safe at the back of the hall.

The door was slightly ajar.

There was a note.

“BURN IN HELL, YOU BASTARD.”

Andy sighed. As his entire world forever erupted into flames.

END