Here's a new one

         It's day a million.  Kevin Vokes has been reading this blog of mine.  I am not sure but I think things are getting better.  I'm understanding the role of conflict.  I'm working on a second book and this one is a lot better than the first one (ie: constantly improving)

 

            Ron stared out of the window of his little shack with eager anticipation.  He read the letter from Stacy over and over again.

            “I hate my mom,”  He read to himself with zest.  “Remember that movie star auntie you said you had?”

            Ron shook continuously as he drank coffee straight out of the pot.  A police cruiser came down the street and he ducked, reaching up to twist the blinds shut.  He heard the car door slam and the crunching of footsteps coming up the drive.  Two sets of feet.

            The doorbell rang and Ron ran into the bathroom, parting his hair with a wet comb and throwing a polo shirt on over his mother of pearl wife beater.  There were a couple of loud knocks, followed by a few more rings of the doorbell.

            “I found this young lady wandering down the side of the road.”

            “Your mother couldn’t give you a ride?”  Ron said.  “That woman is no-good.”  Ron said unconvincingly.

            The officer looked over at the window Ron had shut the blinds at.  “Why’d you close the blinds?  You in some sort of trouble with the law, boy?”

            “No, I just don’t like the police, you know?”  He looked at Stacy pleadingly.  There had to be some way she could vindicate him.

            “I’m going to come in and take a look around.”  The cop said.

            “Don’t you need a warrant or something?”  Ron said weakly as the cop pushed him aside with a flat hand. 

            Ron stepped outside and looked desperately at Stacy.  She removed a piece of gum from its tinfoil and rolled her eyes up at him.

            “I think I hear your police radio.”  Ron said.  “It sounds like something important is going on.”

            Luckily for Ron, he cleaned up a little for Stacey.  He vaccuumed the purple shag carpeting,  it looking frayed and stained but attentive.  Wicker coffee tables flanked a lumpy loveseat, beads hanging off of the chandelier.  The garbage can sitting next to the TV was overflowing with empty soda bottles, a few on the floor next to it.  Two doors on the opposite side of the room led to the kitchen and the bedroom.

            “You weren’t planning on having this girl stay with you here, were you?”  The officer asked.  Ron walked back in sheepishly.

            “I was gonna sleep on the couch.”  Ron said, the cop crossing his arms.  Ron proceeded to lay down on the couch, his legs and head elevated in a V shape.

            “It’s not comfortable but I have done it before and I’ll do it again.”  Ron said.

            “Are you sure we should even be driving this thing?”  Stacy asked.

            “It’s my car, Stacy.  It’s tougher than it looks.  Got a lot of character.”  Ron responded.

            “Ron, it’s a truck.”  Stacy said incredulously and picked at peeling sea-green paint covering the rust that grew like a barnacle underneath.  She dropped to her knees and looked under the thing, hitting the rotting exhaust pipe with the back of her hand.

            “We gotta get going or we ain’t never going to get to Auntie Fiona’s house.  The pools a lot more fun during the day.”

            “You promise this won’t kill me?”

            The car started fine, three gutteral coughs and then a long wheeze.  It sputtered like Porky Pig’s car in an old cartoon as it flung pebbles in each direction like a lawnmower on old Arvsdale Avenue. 

            “Wave goodbye to the house.”  Ron said dryly.  Stacy found this remark more ominous than Ron intended. 

            “This death wagon.”  She said under her breath, popping her head out of the window and breathing in the hot, musky desert air.

           

            Mr. Beasley stepped out onto the turf for his ten A.M cigarette.  He pulled off his plain blue sweatstained visor and revealed the tanline underneath. 

            He was down to the nub of it when he noticed the gaping hole between his tractor trailor and haywagon.  He took his flip phone out of the front pocket on his overalls and dialed whilst swearing to himself under his breath.

            “Ursa-Mae, get your sister.  That girl could sleep through a thunderstorm.”

            Ursa pushed into Stacy’s room, her alarm clock blaring.  Her bed was a mess, which was completely unlike her.  And the window was wide open, the curtains fluttering in the breeze.  She pulled the blanket up to the pillows and went over to the window.  Her mother was out in the yard.

            “Ma, she’s run away again.”

            “Yer boy took the truck and he gone.”  Words leaked out of Beasley like air out of a flat basketball.

            “He isn’t MINE.  We got DIVORCED.  And you’re his boss, not some friend of the family.”  Carline said. 

            The car rumbled past the “Population 500” sign, along a freshly paved onramp and onto the thick tar of the city road.

            Stacy smiled over at Ron.  He looked back sheepishly and refocused on the road, a light blush painting itself onto his cheeks.

            “What’s she like?”  Stacy asked.

            “Oh, you know.  Like any other movie star.  She is the nicest woman I’ve met.”  He reached an arm over behind her head.  “When I was growing up, we always looked forward to going to Fiona’s house.  She would cook up lobsters on the grill, she had fancy juice in a big pitcher with ice cubes and limes floating in there, we would spend the whole day by the pool.  Some of her movie star friends showed up, too.  They came and went like it was their hangout.”

            Stacy checked her makeup in the mirror.

           

            On the side of the road, Montgomery sat in his smoldering black leather police cruiser.  Ron’s car flew by, and since it wasn’t dark enough he didn’t notice their tail light was out.