Honorable Mention

Matthew Fiander

She Was an Egyptian Cartoon

To hell with her is what I was thinking. Because she had just left and there were dishes smashed all over the kitchen and all I wanted was some breakfast, but I couldn't because my feet were bare-assed and the kitchen floor was all full of ceramic bits ready to cut me wide open, so I just sat on the couch, hungry, and looked at the whole scene--with those broken dishes and the damn cooking show Jen left going on the television and the clothes that were lying on the floor because she said she wanted out that instant, and she pulled the door open so hard the chain lock came out of the rotten door frame so there was a draft creeping in ankle high from outside and this whole thing looks a hell of a lot like Good Riddance.

A minute later I had my head in my hands and I was crying like a big dumb lonely baby and I just wanted all of my major organs to shut down. As much as seconds before I wanted her to bug the hell off, now I wanted her back so we could watch that local access God channel we used to watch late-night with the woman preacher and the guy who went by Brother, and all Brother did was say Yes and Amen and hold his hands up like he was praying and me and Jen, we used to have a drinking game where we'd say Yes and Amen and good-God-knows-what-else along with Brother and if we messed up it was a big swig of Mad Dog--she used to like the strawberry-banana where I liked the old-fashioned grape but both of 'em tasted like those cans of frozen juice concentrate mixed with battery acid, so why we drank them in the first place I got no idea.

But that television—the one still showing some tarted-up guy making some fancy, Frenchified version of pork chops while I cried my stomach sore—was a good measure of how things were with me and Jen. If things were good on her little visits, we watched something like local access God people and laughed our crazy, you'd-think-we-were-kids-again heads off, but if things were bad Jen would put some shit on like these cooking shows. She knew I hated them not because I hated cooking—I mean, you should see what I can do with canned beans in sauce and a stick of pepperoni—but because I had this pigmy-type kitchen in my apartment where you could stir a pot of what-have-you from the living room couch. Try making braised beef, or sweet potato casserole, or whatever in those conditions. But with that show on, and the Frenchy guy getting the pan sizzling, and me missing Jen all to hell crying on the couch, I kept it on because I couldn't move to get the channel flipper and because she had run off to her place in the mountains and she wasn't coming back. Kiss my ass goodbye, she had said, and was out the door letting that damn ankle-high draft send all the blood out of my feet and into my red toes and up my legs back into my infant heart and I just stared at them and felt cold until my eyes cleared and the guy on TV was saying Look at that and Beautiful golden brown and if he were in the room I didn't know if I'd throttle him and throw the hot skillet out the window or weep into his greasy lap.

But just then the phone rang and I had it in my lap because something in me thought she'd call but knew she wouldn't—I guess you'd call that hope. I answered on the first ring and sure enough it was Jen and I heard her say Hello and then there was this rushing sound over and over again.

--Where are you?

--The highway. I got a flat.

--What do you expect me to do? Don't you got mountain friends who can come and help you?

--I'm barely past Kernersville, Jackass.

--You left two hours ago.

--I had lunch at the pub. Are you going to help me?

--The pub is my hang out.

--Now's not the time, Dale.

--And you broke all my damn plates.

--So what if I did?

--'Cause now that it's convenient you want my help.

--Nothing convenient about it.

--Oh no?

--Dale, do you really think you're the first person I called?

This was not exactly the conversation I imagined when I hoped for the phone to ring with Jen on the other end. But that was what I had come to love about Jen. It was tough to tell what you were going to get from her one minute to the next.

--You coming or not Dale?

Give me one reason is what I wanted to say, but it came out, Where are you?

--Just before Exit 10. Bring a coffee, it's getting cold.

The line went dead after that.

I stayed on that couch for a bit telling myself I didn't want to go, that I didn't want to help her, but then I nearly forgot my shoes getting out the door, and swore to myself the one thing I wouldn't do was bring coffee to some woman who just left me and smashed up my dishes. Not that I was crazy about them; they were dingy, not quite white and my mom gave 'em to me free when I moved into my new place. But the things could hold a grilled cheese as good as any other plates could, and now I had nothing left but my own two hands.

I got onto the highway and got up to 80 MPH--standard cruising speed—but it must've been a slow day or the cops were out because I was passing everyone and I'm on that sucker daily and even the grannies do 80. So I slowed down to a shade under 70 and decided Jen could wait until her ass fell asleep in her seat because I wasn't going any faster. I got to thinking that slower was probably the speed I should have taken with Jen. I knew pretty early on things with her would be weird when we met at a work party at Ned from Shipping's house and she was a friend of Laura the Secretary's, down from the mountains for the weekend and we faced off in beer pong—which made me feel like an idiot kid again and not some 9-to-5 UPS driver—and her and Laura beat me and Ned and then Laura came up and said My friend thinks you're kind of cute and so later on in the night with a few more beers for bravery I took a puff of my stogie and walked up to her.

--Hi, I'm Dale.

--Dale, I hate cigars.

I tucked the thing behind my back but you could still smell it.

--Get out of my face with it, Dale.

And she walked away just like that. I puffed down that stogie damn quick and stole some mints out of a jar on the counter and said Hello and she said Take two and I don't know what we talked about after that because I was focused on how she cursed like a sailor and let her bra strap hang off her shoulder, the way she burped a low bass burp after a swig of beer but still had the eyes and the lips and the ass that you'd crawl over broken glass for. I'm no idiot, so I know we just got drunk and went home together and she told me since she came down most weekends because she had no friends left in the mountains we could make it a regular thing since we were just some easy play for each other.

Still, she reminded me of one of those old Egyptian cartoons they painted on walls. She'd come down, and we'd order take-out and watch crappy television, then do our thing at night, and we didn't talk about much. But I knew there was something else down there inside of her, and I just wanted her to stick around long enough for me to see it. She couldn't just be this flat character painted on a wall, she was a person with all the dimensions and troubles and hopes that thickened in her marrow like the rest of us. I was sure of it.

But it was hard to get deep with Jen, no matter how I tried. As long as we kept to insulting the TV and bumping till the box springs broke we were fine. It was when we made like an actual couple things went all Jerry Springer for us. The first time we actually went out to dinner, at my insistence, I tried to order the bacon-chicken sandwich for Jen because Ned said that would be suave as hell. But she nearly brained me, said it was a new millennium and women could tell what they wanted their damn selves you useless Cro-mag, which was a pet name she would throw around a lot. One time, Ned asked me about Jen at work and I told him, She's a real organ grinder, and Ned said, You mean, like, you're her dancing monkey? and I shrugged. Hadn't thought of it like that, I said. What's the other way to think about it? Ned asked and I told him I meant she can say things'll grind up your organs, the liver and kidneys and the like and Ned just laughed and said I hear that, Brother like what I said was a normal thing to say about someone so I took it back. But later, when she flipped out and broke the plates, I guess I should've known I was right, and maybe I should have seen the reaction coming when I asked her to dinner at my parents’ house.

Meeting the parents was a boyfriend-girlfriend thing and she was having none of it. She asked me what in our history had given me the impression she'd want to do that, and I guess she had a point but I was stuck. I had let her name slip on the phone when my mom asked if there was anyone special and I said Her name's Jen before I could get my slow-motion brain to stop and think about what it was doing, because Mom can't let shit like this go and it'd be How's Jen and What's her parents do and When are you gonna pop the question and What color will the bridesmaid's dresses be--all those questions from now until Kingdom come if I didn't invite Jen to dinner and show them this wasn't any big deal, that nothing would come of it probably.

Still, when I woke before her and sat there thinking stupid hazy morning thoughts about her coming to dinner I imagined her being impressive as hell. My dad would get a kick out of our God channel game, because he's always joking about that stuff too, and her and Mom could talk about that Italian chef guy on TV who, near as I can tell, has some form of Tourette's but can do some shit with veal you wouldn't believe. In my head it was all set, we would be a regular couple, Romeo and Juliet, without the double-suicide thing. But, of course, in reality I asked her over coffee and the plates started flying and it was Why would I do that and Do you even like me? And I said Hell yes, I like you.

--But I'm terrible to you. I make you feel like the Idiot King all day, then sleep with you at night to shut you up. I just can't do it anymore, I'm tired of feeling like the goddamn wicked witch.

--Are you breaking up with me? I asked.

--We're not breaking up, Dale, because we weren't dating. I told you we couldn't 'date'. I mean, it's not like we've been exclusive right? You've seen other people haven't you?

I was sure she was lying, cross-my-damn-heart sure. I knew enough of her to know she'd tell a lie like she was putting a shield up in front of her.

--Of course I have, Jen. Plenty of girls.

The lie scraped out of my throat like a jagged pebble.

--I just can't do this anymore. It's not worth it, treating you this way. It's not good for either of us.

--You don't mean it when you pick on me, I say.

--I don't?

--No, you're just afraid of commitment.

I'm going to hold a seminar one day about ways to keep your dishes in one piece. Telling the girl you're sleeping with—especially when that sort of thing don't come around your block too often—that she's afraid of commitment would be Cardinal Law One on the list of Things Not to Say. I might have spared a couple of the small saucers if I hadn't let that slip. But I did, and she busted up the place and before she left she said, You're clueless, Dale—probably to make herself feel better after going all bat-shit—then I guess karma caught up with her on the highway. But if I have a hold on the situation, karma is a bit of a pansy because it just flattened her tire with some cosmic wood nail and that ain't enough by a long shot, I don't think.

Driving as slow as I was when the highway split off west, the road seemed like it'd never end. I never liked this stretch; how it goes down to two lanes and all the trees seem like they're leaning over you. My chest always gets tight on this road and the cars passing by seem side-swiping close and if those cars were moving quicker and I didn't want Jen to sweat it out so bad, I'd've laid on that gas petal hard. Thing was, now I was the one sweating—I pictured Jen bone-dry on the road side—and I figured it probably wasn't just the road but that maybe I had some blame in all of this. I've always found a way to fall in love with any girl who would pay me some attention, like when  I told my high school prom date I loved her in the back of my mom's car when she whispered Let's do it the breathy way I only ever heard in late-night cable movies. So during the whole Jen situation I said to myself Don't be like that, Don't be like that and I sang that Eagles’ song in my head, going Take it to the limit, one more time like those were the only words in the song and I was doing pretty good, but soon enough she was coming every weekend instead of every other weekend, and even though she said the mountains were boring as hell it felt like something else. We were drawn to be with each other. I was soaked in that feeling, so of course I invited her to that dinner with my folks, not learning a lick from my mistakes. It'd be good for me to get away from her for a while, I thought, passing Exit 14. I'll just do this one thing to help her on her way. Just a little boost out of my life and that'll be that. I can do that wipe-my-hands-in-front-of-my-face thing and move on. I got the image of me doing that motion in my head, and imagined Jen disappearing right in front of me, dissolving into the wind. The truck swerved a little and the car next to me blared its horn and I had to snap out of it and right myself.

The traffic let up after some construction, and I was all of a sudden pulled up behind Jen's car on the side of the road and there she was, leaning her hip on the back passenger side and for a second I hoped she'd stood there all this time waiting for me because even though I was thinking Let's just get through this and No hard feelings and all that, I hadn't forgotten the sty she made of my apartment. I set my hazards on and sat in the cab for a second trying to calm the quick beat in my chest, leftover I think from the near brush I had with that car a minute before. It took a little while, long enough for me to look at the coffee in the truck's cup holder and to feel foolish enough that my chest relaxed but my face went red. I took a deep breath and got out.

--Which tire?

She kicked the one at her feet, the rear passenger side tire.

--You got the tools out?

--They're all right here, I'm not a dummy.

--Just can't change a tire, huh? Need my help?

--Quit while you're ahead, Dale. You bring my coffee?

I turned around and looked at my truck for a second, then turned and shook my head.

--Slipped my mind, I guess. Let's go ahead and get this over with.

I grabbed up the tools and got the jack in the place to lift the car up, but then I heard her sigh all heavy and she said something to me. She said Thanks for coming out here, and goddamn my simple heart picked up its pace and while I jacked the car up off ground I was asking that dumb organ Do you remember what we talked about in the car and Can't you just change this tire and get this forest fire of a woman out of your life? But my heart knows what I'm just getting now and that's that love doesn't have an Off switch, that love isn't much more than muscle memory and you can't stop it any more than you can stop the cells in your body dying and growing back.

Jen knelt down and leaned in behind me.

--I want to watch so I can do this myself next time.

That's what she said, and meanwhile her smell was sneaking up my nose and there's no helping I wanted to throw her in my truck and take her back to my apartment and strip her clothes off and kiss her neck and bellybutton and knees and commit that flour and brown sugar smell to memory.

But I didn't do any of that stuff. I changed the flat, went through the whole bit of wrenching off the four nuts and getting the tire off, rolling it around on the roadside looking close for a tack or a nail, but there was nothing there so I gave it to Jen to look over and I plopped the spare donut on. While I was jacking the car down Jen came back over.

--There's no nail in it or anything, I don't think.

--Well, the donut's on, so you're all set.

--What do you mean 'all set'?

--Tire's changed. My job's done.

--Oh no, Dale, I can't get to Boone on that little thing.

--What am I gonna do about that?

Jen pointed to a couple of gas stations just off the exit. She said, You're coming with me. I hate gas stations.

I looked at her, then at the stations in the distance.

--You won't get your tire plugged at one of those giant highway gas stations, I'll tell you that much.

--Then we'll drive until we find one that will help us.

I couldn't do anything but stand there shoulder-slumped and stare at her because the smashed plates or the cooking show or the drive out there or that damn cup of coffee in the truck or the tire changing had worn me out all of a sudden. I couldn't find one reason in my head, not one good reason, for me to have come out and help her. She asked and I came running, and that was pretty much the Mobius strip our whole relationship had traveled on.

I said Give me the keys.

--Excuse me?

--If I'm going, I'm driving. Otherwise, have a nice life.

Jen frowned at me, but not like she did when she was about to call me Cro-mag, but more like I was something she was trying to translate.

--Let's go, Jen. Give them up and hop in. I don't have all day.

I sounded calm and collected and in control even though the shake in my gut would have put a decent number on a Richter scale.

Jen said Okay, okay and gave me the keys and we both got in and I started the engine. Usually, Jen's car ran real smooth, but heading slowly up the exit with the donut on we rocked and bumped like we were on some funhouse mirror road.

--I can't believe you came, Dale. You're some pushover.

--That's a hell of a way to talk to a guy who just came out here and changed your tire.

--I knew you'd come, that's all I'm saying.

--Whatever you say.

--I mean, come on Dale, you do anything I ask. All the time.

--Well this is the last time, better enjoy it.

Jen frowned, opened her mouth to say something but then stopped herself. We had cruised pass the two big gas stations and down a street neither of us knew. The donut kept us going slow and the only thing in my head was that lilt in Jen's voice, the way she said All the time. The pity in it churned my stomach.

Silence filled the car as we trudged along and Jen kept giving me sideways looks, humming a song I didn't know the way she sometimes did laying in bed with me. The road seemed to run for miles with no sign of stopping, until finally we came upon a stop sign and to the right was a main strip, or close enough to it. Starting down it, we saw a whole slew of gas stations, one after the other and Jen kept saying There, turn, turn, and grabbing at the wheel like a crazy person. But they were all quick-stop stations with no car bays or mechanics.

This one won't help, I kept saying back. We're not stopping.

After four or five stations, I told her not to worry and Jen settled back into her seat.

We were quiet for a few minutes and then I hear myself say You know, we don't have to break up.

--I'm just saying, Jen. We've had time to calm down, maybe now we can speak rationally.

She gave another sideways glance, but held this one long enough for me to meet it. Her eyes were polished steel, taking me in the way she did at Ned's party, but the longer she looked the more they softened and got murky and then she sighed big and spoke.

--Rationally? You can't even admit we never dated. That there isn't a relationship to 'break up'. Like that time you bought me that ring after I specifically said we weren't buying each other stuff, least of all expensive jewelry.

I told her I didn't remember doing any such thing.

--Oh, yes you do, Dale. Remember I told you to take it back and you said you did but I found the jewelry box two weeks later hidden under your bed.

--Why do you think that was such a big deal for me? Maybe that's your problem, Jen, you made me out to be some child.

--Dale, when I refused that ring you cried until you fell asleep on the couch.

--I did not cry that hard.

--Yes, you did.

We went silent for a second but I could feel the words building in her, words she wasn't sure how to say but once she did would swallow up all the space in her car.

--I was going to leave you back then, Dale. That was it for me, but I stayed because I was worried what would happen to you. I thought you might come unglued if I took off.

--I'm not the one who threw plates all over the place.

--I was hoping you'd throw me out.

I was waiting for some sour feeling to coat my stomach, for the pressure to build behind my eyes, for my foot to slam on the brake and to start screaming or sobbing or both but all I said, nice and quiet, was You're a piece of work, Jen, and that was actually all I was thinking. But every part of me sagged with the burden of this thought, my eyes coated with tears because I had told myself a steamer trunk of lies about how I didn't care if Jen came to love me but also that I thought she could, that all we needed was some time. That damn “Take it to the Limit” came back in my head like it was blaring on the radio, and now I could remember every word.

Just as the gas stations were giving way to ranch houses farther down the road, I spotted two Mexicans next to a small shack with a sign that read Enrique's Tire and Auto Repair. Hand to God, that's what it said. My lungs pulled back in and the static-electric pops in my head calmed down and I pulled in and Jen sighed real big.

The one smaller guy sat against the wall putting an engine part back together, so the bigger guy that had been standing right on the roadside helped us. Without saying hardly anything, he waited for me to get the tire from the trunk and he took it and disappeared into the shack.

Jen and I stood there outside staring at the ground, and the fatigue came back into my body with a force and I was happy just to wait silently for the fixed tire. I felt Jen look at me once, but I just kept on looking at the ground, feeling the seconds pass.

The guy came back out with the tire fully inflated, but I could hear the air hissing out of it. He walked past us, nodding for us to follow, and we went around the back of the shop where there was a big metal tub full of water. Immediately after he dropped the tire in the water a stream of little bubbles came rushing small and quick to the water's surface from a hole Jen and I couldn't find back on the highway.

The guy pulled it out and ran his hand over where the air had come from.

--I can fix it, he said, so quiet I almost didn't hear.

Jen asked how much.

--Plug is ten dollars.

Jen looked at me and I knew she didn't have any money, but I gritted my teeth and nodded at the guy and he went back inside to plug the tire.

--Well, this whole mess is almost over.

I didn't answer, just squinted down into the tub of water. I had run out of things to say, finally, but what I was finding peering down into that water, seeing myself reflected in it, was that I was goddamn tired and not talking anymore was just fine with me.

But then Jen came up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder. She said, her hand squeezing a little, Are you going to be okay, Dale?

That lilt was back in her voice again, talking like I had just skinned my knee on the playground, and it sent a slingshot of heat up my spine and I turned on her quick.

--Christ, Jen, can't you stop for a goddamn second? You keep talking like your words are some damn leash you keep me at the end of, but I'm done talking. You hear me? Done. You can go off to the mountains and be as alone as you want to be or you can screw every tent-pitching tourist that comes through town. I don't give a goddamn anymore.

I was yelling like something in me was coming loose and it felt good, but the skinny guy against the wall had leaned up to look at us worried, I think, that he'd have to call the cops. I waved to him as best I could to say things were all right. But Jen came up real close to me again, facing me now with a hand on both my shoulders.

--Oh, Dale, I just don't know how you expect me to believe that.

-- Fine, I said, or something short like that, and before I know it I took a step back and with a hand on each side of the metal tub I lifted myself over and splash, dropped myself right in.

-- What the hell, Dale?

--How's this? I yelled. Come take a look Jen. You see any air leaking out of me? Any blood? Come find the holes you've made, the ones that you don't think'll ever heal.

--Dale, you're acting like a crazy person.

--Just look for a second, Jen. Stop talking and look. There ain't one hole in me. Not one. I'm going to be just fine, okay? Just fine.

I got out of the water, checking before I did to make sure I wasn't lying. Then I was standing in front of Jen dripping streams of water on the dusty earth and that tired feel came back deep into the core of me as quick as it had left. I reached in my back pocket and pulled out my waterlogged wallet and peeled out a twenty.

I told her to give him the whole thing and I started walking toward the street.

--Where you going, Dale?

I turned and tried to quell the shiver that was setting in.

--Sometimes there's nothing more to say.

--At least let me give you a ride.

I shook my head and started down the road. A few stations down, she caught up with me and pulled in, insisting I let her drive me. I said okay, long as she'd wait while I went inside so I could wet my whistle. My soaked clothes were chilling me, and I had gone in to get a coffee, but they had one of those machines that make Frozen Co’colas and I decided I hadn't had one in forever and wet clothes or not I was getting one.

Back in the car heading for the highway, the Frozen Co’cola tasting so good I didn't care about the quivering cold in my chest, Jen licked her lips hard and said I'm sorry Dale, I really am. I just half-smiled but didn't reply because I was worn out on words and trying not to notice how that pity-streaked lilt had gone out of her voice and how nice it sounded.

She let me out just before the on-ramp at my insistence so I could walk back down to my truck. We didn't say goodbye, or anything like that, because it seemed one of those times when saying that would only make the leaving more foolish. I held onto the look in her eyes long after the car had pulled away. It was the look of those light after-storm clouds which really looked just like before-storm clouds but either way I felt a comfort I had to shake my head at. I started the walk back to my car on the side of the highway, not a song in my head, drinking the hell out of that Frozen Co'cola, and still trying to beat down my rebel heart.