"I'm gettin' outta here. You wanna
come and see the world or stay and be your momma's baby girl?" Bert asked,
his version of the world being anything beyond the city limits, 20 miles or
more. He'd been sitting on the edge of a swamp dock, staring at tidal sludge
and tossed cigarette butts, hoping that somewhere was bigger than this.
Suze looked at him. She didn't really want to go. She'd lived in Robeline, LA,
her whole seventen years. Knew all the backroads to here and there. Could say hi
y'all to the city's population A to Z. Plus there was her mom.
Mom and Suze had been each other's hand to hold come high water and trouble for
a long time, tick to each other’s hound.
Or at least since Suze's dad had bought it in the Deepwater Horizon offshore
oil rig explosion, 2010, when the BP oil well platform crashed into the Gulf and
lives sunk into the sea. One minute he was a loving voice on the telephone. The
next minute was static and a dead line.
So it was Bert and surprise or Mom and safety. She was torn, at a crossroad
somewhere between sure 'nough and no tellin'. But Bert was like a big snort of
coke, and then her head would ride high. His touch sent shivers from her spine
to her butt, like when she'd stuck her tongue to the electrical outlet once on
a dare. Plus he was a bit scary. What teen could turn that down? He was a
rollercoaster ride on the Dallas Six Flags' New Texas Giant.
"Sure, let's do it," she said with as much bravado as a first sip of
Pabst Tall Boy behind the high school bleachers.
"Well, run in then, grab a pillowcase, throw in some jeans, shirts, girlie
stuff . . ." and he paused, with a wicked look of lust, if eyes could
drool, "a short nightie, then let's book it. The world ain't gonna come
and get us. We gotta reach to grab."
An hour later, just west of the Alabama state line, near abouts Mobile as never
mind, his borrowed truck's engine light strobed red, and the truck crawled
toward stop. Bert yanked the steering wheel hard right to ease the truck off
the highway and onto the shoulder, where he commenced to pound the living shit
out of the wheel while muttering curses.
Suze looked south out her passenger window toward the Gulf. A squall was
boiling, sending angry clouds her way. The clouds raked across the moon like
claws. A bolt of lightning struck horizontal across the sky, low to the land.
The flare lit up the windshield in a ghostly green, and for a moment Suze saw
her dad smiling at her, the way our brains recollect in hope.
Then the light settled back, her dad was gone, and only Bert sat there, in his
borrowed truck, a red warning light strobing, mumbling curses.
She grabbed at her chest, reaching for air, breath hard to grasp in the
humidity of doubt, at the crossroad of coulda' and don't bet on it.
About the author
Steve Gerson writes poetry and flash about life's dissonance. He has published in many journals plus his 11 chapbooks: Once Planed Straight; Viral, And the Land Dreams Darkly, The 13th Floor, What Is Isn’t, There Is a Season, Have No,t; Who Am I Today, Dystopia, Grim, and Through Shadows.
Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the author the other half goes to expenses e.g. Maintaining the web site and setting up The Best of Café Lit book each year.
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