Shoebox Trainwreck

by John Mantooth

  In prison, you wake up in the morning and know the day. It’s not even a day, really, because day implies that there is possibility inherent in the hours that wait. In prison, there are no possibilities. You sit up, clearing your dreams from the night before, which is fine because with the dreams come the occasional nightmare of standing atop a bridge, hesitating to jump. There’s breakfast and yard time and lunch and back to the cell for a few hours of sitting on your ass and thinking about how you’ll change your life if you ever get out of those walls, even though there is a part of you that absolutely knows that change—real, fucking change in life—is about as likely as winning the lottery. Sure it happens to some people, but mostly it’s a pipe dream people buy into for a few hours, maybe days, before being disappointed.

  No disappointment in prison. You wake up in the morning. You know the day. Until you’ve done your time and you wake up, and you don’t know what to expect any more and you realize, sitting on the edge of your narrow bed that your knees are shaking.

  So maybe Truck’s right. After all, Danny doesn’t trust Chet, and yet he’s here in the same house with him, about to go through with the next step, robbing some rich people and doing god knows what else next. It’s not like prison, that’s for sure. It’s wilder, scarier even, a long drop from a bridge, with so many opportunities to land in the wrong place.

  Before Danny can contemplate his situation any more, he notices a small green car pulling into the driveway right behind Chet’s van. It looks like a Civic or Corolla or some similar compact Japanese car. The car stops, and he watches—feeling slightly mesmerized by the whole thing—as a woman steps out. She’s attractive—not in the bling bling, fake tit way that the woman across the street is—but really pretty. She’s got short brown hair, and big brown eyes, and nice legs, well toned legs. She looks straight at the house and then back to Chet’s van.

  By this point, Truck sees her too. He’s standing next to Danny, shoulder to shoulder, looking out the window. The woman runs a hand down her skirt, straightening it, and starts toward the house.

  “What the fuck is she doing?” Truck says.

  Danny shrugs. “Maybe she’s selling something.” He’s not exactly afraid yet, but he feels a sense of unease begin to twitch in his stomach.

  She passes the window and disappears as she reaches the front steps. Her heels click on each step. There are six in all. Danny waits, tensed, for the doorbell. Instead, he hears the rattling of keys, and a bolt turning, and it dawns on him—too late, of course—that this woman is a realtor and this is one of her properties.

  The door swings open part way and she says, “Hello? Is there someone here? If you’re here to finish the kitchen, it’s about time.”

  He and Truck make a break for the hallway, passing the bathroom where Chet is probably figuring out that paper towels don’t flush.

  They bump into each other and curse and round the corner into the dining area, where there is some table and furniture, and—yes—a realtor’s card with the lady’s pretty face staring back at them. Truck throws it down in disgust. “Not good,” he hisses.

  Here it is, Danny thought. They had been so stupid. How many times had he walked through here in the last few days and looked at that card? Yet it had never crossed his mind that the lady would actually show up.

  There are no doors to the outside in this room, only a bank of shuttered windows. Danny goes over and flings open one of the shutters just as he hears the woman’s voice from the front room: “Is there someone in the house? Is someone in the house right now?”

  Danny’s lifting the window when he hears the falsetto reply: “Why yes, dear, I’m home. Just taking a shit. Be right out.”

  It’s Chet. The toilet flushes. Truck spits out a torrent of profanities and pushes past Danny for the window. Danny lets him go.

  The bathroom door swings open. Chet inhales loudly. “I love the smell of shit in the afternoon.”

  The woman says, “I have a can of mace and a cell phone. Don’t come any closer.”

  Chet laughs. “Hear that boys? She’s got mace.”

  Truck doesn’t hear it because he’s out the window, tumbling in the backyard, grimacing from a longer than expected drop, but he looks okay. He’s up on his feet waving at Danny. “Come on!”

  Danny shakes his head and turns away from the window.

  Before going to prison, Danny always heard people say that prison teaches a man. He’d heard his father say it when he was talking about Danny’s uncle who went inside an alcoholic and came out four years later, stone sober and full of what he called the Holy Spirit. Another uncle, this one on Danny’s mother’s side, learned how to be violent inside. He’d always been as meek as a lamb until prison taught him that he could settle most anything with a pair of clenched fists.

  Danny likes to think that prison taught him as well. He learned that there are limits to what he can—in good conscience—live with. He learned that living with a bad conscience is a way he can’t live at all. He also learned that there is an area—a certain kind of grayness when a man’s fears override his better judgment, and he finds himself doing the very thing he didn’t think he would ever do. Then there’s nothing for it except living out his days in misery.

  This is what he fears. More than prison, more than anything. The gray area where things overlap.

  In the other room, the lady screams.

  Once it comes into focus—what Danny is looking at—he feels a little better, a little more like himself. He could draw this moment, frozen forever on a page, and get to the truth of something, Chet maybe, the lady too. If he is lucky, even himself. He’d use pencils and plenty of overlapping lines because that’s how he sees them, all elbows and teeth, hands and hunched shoulders, fingernails and pinched lips. He doesn’t know which one draws the eye more, Chet or the lady. No, take that back. It’s Chet. Definitely Chet.

  He’s got a rusty box cutter to the lady’s throat, his other big hand resting on the nape of her neck, almost gently, like a lover, or a parent holding a child. His face, though, is a comic book parody of violence, jagged sneering lips, bulging maniac eyes.

  The woman’s face is a slate rock, pale white, devoid of any emotion except what’s found in her tiny brown eyes, which are wet and quick and full of regret. She is murmuring something so low Danny doesn’t realize it’s her at first.

  “You think I’m going to hurt you?” Chet says, his voice still strangely soft, high-pitched, loving.

  The woman doesn’t speak, but the answer is in her eyes.

  He pops the back of her head with his hand. “Why do you assume I will hurt you?”

  She whimpers. “You’ve got a razor.”

  Chet’s eyes dart around, lively and full of manic energy, and for a second he reminds Danny of a bird, a tiny bird, pecking the ground for some food, its dark, sudden eyes wary and wild.

  “Oh, how about that? I’ve got a razor. Good ol’ box cutter.” He swings those terrible eyes over to Danny. “Did you know I had a box cutter, Danny Boy?”

  Danny is silent, but he nods slowly.

  “I’ve already called the police,” the woman says.

  Chet doesn’t appear to hear her. He leans in close to the woman, speaking low into her ear. “If I wanted to hurt you, I’d cut out your cunt and feed it to you. You ever eaten cunt?”

  The woman—the card had said June, right?—looks like she’s about to faint.

  “It’s a delicacy. When a woman’s real wet, you know the cum, it tastes really good. First time I tried it, I wasn’t sure, but you know it’s one of them acquired tastes.”

  “Chet,” Danny says. “You probably better let her go.”

  Chet laughs, a dry heaving sound, which makes him cough. “Don’t worry, Danny. I’ll share.”

  “No, nobody is going to share.”

  The dry laugh ag
ain, this time more like a cackle, and Danny remembers the first time he heard that laugh. Chet had been up on the bridge, his hands above his head, the wind blowing back his hair. “You people think I’m crazy. Maybe that’s right, but at least I’m doing what the fuck I want to do.” Then he went into the laugh, and it was a high, keening sound in the night, a signal to fly.

  Which he did.

  Danny breathes deep, filling his lungs with air, attuned to his chest expanding, trying to find a level of calm he does not yet feel, but he knows is there somewhere.

  “Chet,” he says. “You ever been to prison?”

  “Juvie, but that doesn’t count.” He’s running the blade over the lady’s cheek, almost cutting the flesh, but not quite.

  “I’ve been,” Danny says.

  “Did they fuck you in the ass?”

  “Yeah, they did it all. But after a while, you learn how to avoid that kind of stuff. You look in people’s eyes, you know? You see the ones who are capable and the ones who aren’t.” Where is he going with this?

  Chet nods. “Oh, I know. I see shit all the time in people’s eyes. Mostly fear.” He glances at the woman, as if to punctuate his point. “But I wonder, Danny-Boy. What do you see? What do you see when you look right here in these peepers?” He tilts his head and opens his eyes even wider, until they look like they might pop right out of his head. “Ever see anything like this in goddamn prison? Go on and tell me the truth.”

  Danny hesitates. What can he say? He takes a step closer, his hands extended, as if he means to touch Chet, but why would he do that? He stops short, holding his hands in front of him, trying to steady Chet without touching him, trying to make the world stop quavering without actually grabbing it. “The truth is,” he begins, “your eyes aren’t like anybody else’s. You might be afraid of something, but I don’t know what it is. When I see your eyes, it’s like looking in a mirror. All I can see is myself.” Danny stops suddenly, realizing he has gone too far.

  Chet leans forward, the box cutter still pressed against the woman’s face. “Go on. When you see yourself, what do you look like?”

  “Scared. Confused. I think those two are the same sometimes. How do you jump from the bridge like you do?”

  The woman whimpers, but Danny has almost forgotten her. Chet is stroking her hair with one hand, holding the box cutter tight to her neck with the other. “The bridge? Shit, I could ask you the same kind of question. How do you go to a fucking job? How do you let somebody tell you what to do? The bridge is as easy as moving my feet. And then I fly. You ever tried it?”

  “No,” Danny says. “Never.”

  “It’s fucking beautiful. That time in the air is the only time I don’t feel like nothing can touch me. It’s the very fucking best part of my life, man. And then I hit and just want to do it all over again.” He shakes his head, remembering. “What’s prison like?”

  “It’s regular. You know what’s coming. Boring.”

  “I couldn’t take that shit.”

  Danny says nothing. He thinks the situation over. Chet hasn’t cut her yet. He hasn’t raped her. They’re talking, just having a conversation. If he can say the right thing, he might be able to convince Chet to let her go, to put the box cutter down. Then the woman goes for her mace. Her purse is still around her shoulder, and she reaches with one hand into the purse.

  Chet reacts more quickly than Danny would have. He slides the razor across her face, cutting through her cheek, exposing tender white flesh that quickly disappears under the free flowing blood. With his other hand, he knocks the mace away. It rolls across the hardwoods into the foyer. He shoves her to the floor. She’s screaming now. But it’s actually good, he’s let go of her, and she’s going to live. Maybe it’s over. Then Danny realizes what Chet means to do.

  He doesn’t even have to unbuckle his pants. He just shimmies his hips and they slide down to his knees. Danny looks away but hears the box cutter clatter against the far wall as Chet tosses it away. He tries to ignore the sounds of Chet working himself up—the grunting, the rubbing, the deep moan as he spills his seed all over the floor, but these things are impossible to ignore.

  “This,” Chet groans, “is what I think of you and this fucking house, bitch.”

  Danny turns back around. Chet has his pants around his knees, one hand still absentmindedly working his softening penis, the other hand useless at his side. His head is down, and the eyes, the same ones that seemed so foreign and unreadable just a few seconds ago, now look wounded, and amazingly, Danny sees a glimpse, just a flash really, of the scared little boy Chet used to be.

  And strangest of all, that flash of insight breaks Danny’s heart.

  Chet looks up suddenly, catching Danny watching him. “Don’t you fucking dare feel sorry for me.”

  Danny lifts his hands, a gesture of surrender.

  But it’s too late. Somehow, Chet sees him. In one instant, Chet has taken Danny’s measure and he knows. Or maybe he always knew, maybe everybody knows. Maybe it’s written all over Danny like a tattoo.

  “You want to go back to prison, don’t you?” Chet’s grinning savagely now, as he walks over to retrieve the box cutter.

  The woman has scooched across the floor, almost to the front door now. Danny nods her on. Hurry, he wants to say, get off your ass and get out of here.

  Sirens whine in the distance. Probably out on the highway, heading this way. She really did call the police.

  “Here,” Chet says and Danny turns to see the box cutter flying at him.

  He catches it and looks at the blood already congealing on the orange casing.

  “Police are on the way. You want to go back, Danny-boy? Well, then do some damage.”

  The sirens are closer.

  Danny looks at the woman. She’s so afraid. He doesn’t blame her. There’s no end to it out here, the fear, the confusion, the wild ass world that keeps coming at you no matter how much you might need a break.

  Danny’s afraid too. He takes a deep breath and imagines a canvas, unblemished and clean. He’s sitting in front of it, his pencils laid out neatly, ready to make something that matters. Then he picks one up and he presses down.

  It breaks.

  Outside, the police car pulls up to the front of the house. The fat fuck—apparently, he does come home for lunch sometimes—is standing in his yard, trying to look tough, like look at me, I’ll help out, bust some heads or something.

  A policeman gets out of the car and begins walking toward the house.

  Fat fuck calls out to him. Policeman turns around. Fat fuck is pointing at the van, shaking his head, and moving his fat fuck mouth.

  “Go on,” Chet says. “Cut somebody. It’s like flying, the best part.”

  Two days later, Danny and Truck are throwing horseshoes in the early evening. The light still lingers but the air is cooled. The yard is shady and crickets buzz from the hidden places.

  “Nice one,” Truck says.

  Danny says nothing and goes to retrieve the horseshoes.

  He comes back and hands them to Truck.

  Truck takes them, makes like he is going to throw one and then stops, putting them down on the grass.

  “They got Chet.”

  Danny nods, wishing Truck wouldn’t talk. Why ruin the silence?

  “Pulled his ass out of bed. I heard from his sister that he went apeshit. Took like five cops to hold him down. I heard they beat the absolute fuck out of him. Heard he took a night stick to the eye that near about blinded him.”

  Danny picks up a horseshoe, weighs it, lets it fly. Wide right.

  “What happened in there?”

  Danny doesn’t know where to begin, so he shrugs.

  “Lady must have described him pretty well.”

  “Must have.”

  “You ain’t worrie
d she’ll make you too?”

  Danny shrugs again. He can’t decide what would be worse, going back to prison or living out here where he is always falling, speeding toward the next crash. He has decided one thing since leaving out the back window with Chet still telling him it wasn’t too late to find out about the best parts of life. He’s going to leave this place. If he’s going to fuck up, it won’t be here anymore. He hasn’t told Mom yet, but he plans on leaving tonight after she gets off work. She’ll ask him where he’s going and he’ll tell her he doesn’t know, which will be the truth.

  “I thought he was going to kill her,” he says. “Rape her.”

  Truck shrugged. “You can’t never tell with Chet.”

  Just then, a car turns off the highway and onto the dirt road about a half-mile away.

  Danny ignores it. Tosses another horseshoe.

  Wide right again. Shit.

  One more. He picks this one up, feeling it perfect and solid in his hand. He can make it count. One more chance. If he concentrates, throws it just right, it’ll be dead on. Surefire? No, not surefire. But a good chance. That’s all he’s ever asked for.

  Truck whistles low and soft. “You see what’s coming down the road there? Shit. I’m gone. You got any sense, you’ll head for the woods too.”

  But Danny isn’t listening. Instead, he’s focused on the little pole in front of him, his arm already in motion.

  He lets it go.

  Slide

  We pulled into my cousin’s gravel drive and saw my uncle’s truck, its windshield splintered into a spider’s web of cracks, glittering white in the moonshine. I was thirteen, and sleepy in the backseat from the long drive, but I sat up straight when I heard my mother gasp. Dad slowed the car, eased up alongside the mess. The passenger side window was gone except for a few jagged shards of glass that clung resolutely to the seal. The rest lay on the ground, tiny seeds among the rocks.

  Mom glanced at me in the back seat and then over at Dad. He put the car in park and got out. Easing the door shut, he walked over to my uncle’s truck. For a very long time, he just stood there, staring at the windshield as if he could read the tenuous latticework of anger that had been left across it, much the way an archaeologist might read the history of an artefact from the long-forgotten past.