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by Paul Hawkins

o'clock. I looked at him. He was grinning like the cat who's found the cream.

  "I got some visiting to do," he told me with a roguish, confidential look. I wasn't in on it, but I knew enough to climb out of the seat. "Have fun," I said.

  He began to back into the street. I turned toward my house. Then he honked. I turned around.

  "Thanks for all the help," he called. "Thank your dad!"

  "I will," I said. Then he left.

  Three hours of the morning left, then the afternoon - for the first time in months with so much free time to myself, not working on the car. I felt strange and looked at the vacant driveway. I went inside. My younger brother and sister were watching cartoons. I went past them to my room. It was funny how fast I fell asleep.

  I woke up late. My mother was shaking my feet.

  "You'll be late for work!" she said.

  I sat up with a start - but then I checked my pace.

  "You'll be late!" she alarmed again.

  "I'm going, I'm going," I responded lazily.

  She must've decided I was feeling sick because I just proceeded at a leisurely pace. It must've started to make her feel guilty.

  "You come home if you feel sick!" she shouted after me as I went out the front door.

  "I sure will," I said, waving a hand, not even turning around. I'm sure she watched me all the way down the block.

  I got to work late and the first person I saw was Cathy. She looked real nervous - when she saw me she made a nervous little laugh, then clammed right up, as though I knew some joke. But I didn't know a thing. She skipped away (skipped!), and I ducked into the bathroom to check in the mirror and make sure I wasn't the joke.

  That was the most eventful thing for hours. I work lazily, and everyone who noticed me noticed it, because I usually worked hard, and if they asked I answered 'Yeah I'm feeling kinda sick' and that satisfied them. I tried to work for a while, but finally I just gave up and sat on a box, not bothering to ask anyone to cover for me. I just sat there for a long time.

  And some time later, a little buzz of electricity began to circulate about the place. Slowly it got stronger, and eventually everyone was whispering about something to everyone - but not to me because I was sick - and after a while I couldn't resist the agitation so I got up to see what it was about.

  I walked down one aisle then another, in our giant maze of boxes coming from and heading to nowhere, and finally, monotonously, I turned a corner and there they were.

  Walters stood in the hall near our exit, with two huge men in purple pinstripe suit towering at either side of him. They were staring at the door, and Walters' neck was livid. But they were too late. Bill and Cathy were already out in the car. I heard a shout, then an outrageous laugh, and then the auto sped away into the night. I never saw either of them again.

  The goons appeared dumbfounded. Then they turned and saw me. Walters' face began to regain some of its color as I slowly approached.

  "And you," he said, his face contorting. "You came in late today! You, you think you can just ... Why I ought to ..."

  "Aw hell," I told him. "You don't have to say anything. I quit."

  His pinstriped apes looked at one another mutely, and I just walked right past them. As I made it through the door I heard one of the gorillas to Walter, "It's no trouble. We like it when the problems fix themselves."

  It was a long dark walk home. The dogs were barking, as always. Something about me always made them bark insanely.

  Like that night so many weeks ago, there was a light waiting for me at home when I arrived. There was my dad, seated at the kitchen table. He had a notepad out, sketching on the edge of some plans for some home-repair project he'd been considering before our car project had come up. He looked up as I entered. I sat down.

  There was some dinner for me, but I couldn't eat it. After just a few bites I pushed it away. He didn't say anything, just looked at the project he planned to do.

  "Dad," I groaned after a long silence, "Is life always rotten?"

  "It was rotten for me," he said, "for a long time."

  I remembered that. "What did you do about it?"

  "You mean what did I do to make things better? Not a thing. They got better, but I didn't have anything to do with it."

  "What did you do until things got better?" I asked.

  He took a deep breath. "I kept going," he said. "It's as simple as that. I didn't even hope. That hurt too much. I just went on."

  I nodded.

  "You've had a long summer," he said. “It’s lightning struck, but not for you.”

  I agreed. "It's almost fall," I said. We both knew what that meant.

  "I'm ready for it," I said at last.

  He looked up. "Yes," he said. "You're doing the right thing. The thing to do now is to follow through - make it yours, let everybody know it's yours, and make the best of it you can."

  I agreed.

  "And of course, while you’re doing this one thing, you can always hope - you've got no choice about it. Even though you’ll be training so hard you’ll think you haven’t got a spare moment or ounce of energy left, your mind will be chasing down every chance, considering every possibility, spinning dreams and ambitions in every pretty face and every far-off corner, and one of those," he said, “one of those will be something far, far better than you’d ever dreamed.”

  I smiled. He got up to go to bed.

  "Thanks dad," I said.

  He mumbled some appropriate sentiment. I went to bed and slept soundly.

  iv

  I followed through and plunged into the world as part of a most efficient machine, surrounded and alone, and I wandered far and the world changed, and in some place and in some manner I completed the ritual injury that was required so that the “who I was” could become the “who I would be.” When I came back my brother and my sister did not recognize me; my mother looked older; my father cried and tried to hide it by admiring my medals. After that I left -- indeed, I could not stay -- and finally, truly, I went out into the world for real and found the one I most desired, and became who I really was.

  END

  About the Author:

  Paul Hawkins is a middle-age guy in Oklahoma with a crazy dream of writing better every day and saying stuff that has not been said yet but needs to be said.

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