January Exercise~Joe's Harley
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| Sun, 01-13-2002 - 11:56pm |
January Exercise~Joe's Harley
Hey gang~critique away!!
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She hangs her new 2002 Sierra Club calendar on the wall next to her desk. The picture of a frosted Ponderosa pine forest somewhere in the Grand Canyon reminds her of her childhood winters. She circles the date, January 15th with a black magic marker. Joe’s Navel division shipped out to the Bering Sea a little over six months ago. He’d called her from Nome, Alaska on New Year’s Day to wish her a happy New Year, and to tell her that he’d be seeing her soon, hopefully around the 15th, seven days from now.
Seated in front of the computer that sits on a small metal and glass contemporary desk angled so that she can look out the living room’s northwest corner window of her second floor apartment, and see the busy street below, she says to no one at all, “I need to get these financial documents done today, or Frank will have my hide! I simply did not have the desire to do these reports during the holidays with Joe gone. And the party’s were a good distraction for a while, but now it's the eleventh hour, and I'm stressed...THAT is my problem with working from home, FOCUS. My focus is non-existent. Focus Lizzie, Focus!”
Turning her attention back to the computer, she slides her hand over the computer mouse to bring up the desktop screen, but the Dungeons and Dragons screen saver that her eight year old nephew gave her for Christmas (his favorite game) mesmerizes her. The characters chase each other through mazes until the dragon is captured, and then the screen fades to black, and the sequence begins again. Lizzie’s mind wanders back to the call from Joe on New Year’s Day.
* * *
Joe said he loved her, missed her, and that he couldn’t wait to see her again. With him gone, the distance and lack of his touch made her disbelieve in his ability to continue to love her. She could never be a military wife, fireman’s wife, or some world traveling corporate wife. All she ever wanted was a normal everyday life with its schedules and consistencies. A husband by her side every night in bed, two children, a boy and a girl preferably, but of course, no guarantees, and all of them tucked into a comfortable small house on a tree-lined street. Why did this dream seem so simple, yet impossible to have?
* * *
Each time the screen saver fades she sees her reflection in the dark glass of the monitor. She catches a glimpse of her sadness. What will I do about Joe? The blinds flutter with the slight breeze from the partially open window carrying a hint of the Pacific Ocean on its breath. She hears the deep rumble of a Harley coming down the street. She looks to her left, and down the street to see if it’s Joe, but the Harley roars on by.
* * *
She loved riding along Highway 101 on the back of Joe’s bike. The sensual mold of her thighs straddling along the back of his legs, her heart racing, and the power of the bike’s engine both exhilerating and frightening at the same time. He’d said, “Lizzie, one of these days we’re going to head east into the sunrise, and see what the road brings!” She should have told Joe then what her dreams were, but she didn’t think she wanted to risk losing him, so she kept her thoughts to herself.
* * *
ScrEEEEch-BOOM! “What in the world was that?”
There on the street, in front of her apartment complex, is a huge yellow Ryder Rental truck. “New tenants moving in. Hey, that looks like Mike, Joe’s best friend. Oh my God! It is Mike.” Pushing back from her desk she runs out the apartment door, along the balcony to the steps, down the stairs, and out the gated courtyard to where Mike is standing behind the truck. She throws her arms around his neck giving him a big hug. “My goodness Mike, what are you doing here?”
“Hey Lizzie, how are you darlin’?” She's always loved Mike’s southern drawl, but today it sounds more pronounced, or what? She steps back from him and immediately knows something was wrong.
“Mike, what is it?” His eyes began to tear up as he looks everywhere, but at her. “Mike?”
“Lizzie, Joe’s dead!”
She stares at Mike as the cars passing by suck the air out of her lungs, the 1940’s multi-colored apartment buildings painted salmon, turquoise, and yellow blend into a blurred tapestry. “Lizzie!” If Mike had not reached out for her she would have crumbled onto the cement sidewalk.
“I’m so sorry Lizzie.” Mike held her tight, slightly rocking from side to side. “His ship was caught in an ice storm; he was working the deck and forgot to secure his safety line, a huge wave smashed over the bow and swept him out to sea.”
“No Mike, you have it wrong. I just talked to him on New Year’s Day,” she mumbled into his warm neck. Her legs had no feeling whatsoever, but she felt as heavy as a two hundred pound sandbag.
“Here Lizzie, let’s go sit on that bench over there.” With his arm tight around her waist he steers her to the stone bench that sits in front of her apartment building under a massive, ancient red Oleander bush, its sticky-sweet repugnant scent filling the air. As soon as they sit down, tears fill her eyes, and she can't stop shaking. “I’m so sorry Lizzie. I know this is a shock. I still can’t believe it myself. I’ve been walking in a daze since Joe’s parents called me early this morning. They’ve asked me to come to Oklahoma right away.” Mike and Joe grew up together, closer than brothers Joe use to say.
Joe told her when he came home he wanted to take her to meet his parents. “We’ll take the bike, and make it an adventure.” When they’d begun dating last May, he’d said that he would never take her to meet them. He was embarrassed by their hillbilly backwoods nature. “They’re grade school educated, slobs, and well, let’s just say my life has improved greatly since I joined the Navy,” he’d explained. But then something had changed his mind.
“I hate to do this to you Lizzie, but I gotta get going, I’ve got a long drive ahead of me. Before I go, I have something to give you. Joe told me if anything ever happened to him, he wanted you to have his Harley. That’s what’s in the truck.”
“What are you saying Mike?”
“Joe told me he wanted you to have his bike. He knew how much you loved it, so he wanted you to have it.”
She buried her face in her hands trying to stifle the sobs that were constricting her throat. Oh God, he didn’t know me at all.
“I can’t keep the Harley, Mike. I don’t want the Harley. Please, you keep it. He was like your brother, and you deserve to have it. Please, please don’t leave it with me.”
“But Lizzie it’s what Joe wanted!”
“The ONLY thing I want is Joe, and ...” Mike got up from the bench, walked over to the truck, and hopped up in the back where he disappeared from her sight. A few minutes later he jumped from the back of the truck, walked up to her, and handed her the Harley emblem he’d taken from the gas tank. He reached out to steady her as she stood up clutching the emblem to her heart.
“I’ll check in on you when I get back into town Lizzie,” he said, his voice breaking.
“Be safe, Mike,” she said as she embraced him. “You know he loved you.”
“As he loved you, Lizzie.” He turned and walked to the back of the truck where he slammed shut the big sliding door, scrEEEEch-BOOM! He climbed up into the cab, started the engine, and turned to look at her once more. He raised his hand to the window, then drove off.
She turned and walked into the gated courtyard, up the stairs, and to her apartment. As she opened the front door, she felt the sea breeze gently caress her bobbed blonde hair. It felt like someone was behind her, she turned to look, but the balcony was empty. She study the Harley emblem, and thought, I will always love you too, Joseph. She stepped into the apartment barely making a sound as she closed the door.
©Kat Katsos

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Heh, well, I was wearing my ...
editor's hat when I read your story. Sorry if I sounded picky. I've been told I can find dust on a flea, so I try to temper it most times ;)
Have a good week, Eyewrite
I may call on you when I'm ready to submit "the" story to the New Yorker! (n/t)
HI, KAT!...(m)
I want to apoligize for being so late in reading the posts on this board.
I found this story to be so sad, but sometimes so sadly true. Do you plan to expand this, maybe to include a relationship with, I'm sorry forgot his name, that brought the Harley to her?
You didn't give a critique level that you wanted, so I will wade in. Overall, you did a good job with this piece. I did find some of the sentences a little rough that you should catch in your rewrite. I also thought that your 'sound effect' words distracted from your story. This is just a suggestion, but I would drop them.
Have a nice weekend, Sammi
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