“April is a cheat,” she announced resolutely to the weather guy on the radio. He indifferently prattled on though through the same report as yesterday. “…this will be the thirtieth straight day and night of rain for the Pioneer Valley. A record in fact! Ten more days of this and we’ll tie old Noah!” Ginny was leaning forward with her eyes squinched and her mouth screwed up in a hopeless effort to see between the distorted remains of the fat flattened raindrops on her windshield. She replied with considerable Yankee apple vinegar dripping from each round finishing school vowel, “Well, whooptedoo! What a thing to get excited about!”
She snapped off the radio so she could hear her own thoughts. She was approaching the top of the pass now. She could feel it. The fog was becoming a solid wall of white clouds that made seeing anything immediately before her almost impossible. One day, one bright beautiful spring day on the first of the month. I should have guessed. It was the first of April after all. She ruefully considered how easily she had been fooled before. Many times before.
She’d been easing off the gas for the last ten miles at least until her car was moving as slowly as the engine would permit. She still couldn’t see even the yellow stripe on the pavement.
She knew very well that what she was doing was foolhardy but she’d already missed three days of work this month due to a terrible cold that left her feeling soggy and chilled to her heart. Then she’d been late at least half a dozen times on top of that. Three of those late days had been exceptionally late days. All of her late days came with the same excuse, “The weather makes the road almost impassable!” The boss had the same retort each time, “Leave earlier then! Everyone else makes it on time!”
Her boss hated even a little tardiness in his employees. She knew she was already far beyond his tolerance, so even if she had to walk, she had made up her mind that she wasn’t turning back. No matter what.
She actually had no idea where she was, at least not visually. She’d been up and over the pass all of her life but when the clouds were this thick and the rain this thick, no one could say with any certainty where they were. She had nothing to base a guess on, no visible landmark or even a memorable pothole. The thickness of the clouds suggested she was very near the top, perhaps even moving slightly down on the far side of the highpoint. She took a long easy breath with that thought. If she was right, the worst would be over in a couple of minutes. The fog made the world seem dreamlike. Time even loafed by as if in a dream, accordingly the minutes lazed by so slowly she began to tense up again.
Like taking a deep breath with eyes closed then diving into a icy clear pool, passing out of the cloud had that sort of sensation. Shock and an odd clarity had seized her body and her senses. The water was thick, nearly frozen, but not quite, and it carried with it the chill of a forgotten January. Then, lightning charged the sky just in front of her and she involuntarily hit the brake.
Several things happened simultaneously then. Time suddenly sprang forward as if it were in a hurry to catch up to its real world counterpart. The traffic that was normally quite heavy at that time of day suddenly appeared as if it had condensed from the clouds like raindrops. The lightning flashed, she hit the brake, the car came to a complete halt slightly between the far right and middle lanes of I-91 just barely over the pass. Cars scattered across the lanes trying to avoid her as Ginny frantically attempted to move her car onto the shoulder. She had just cleared off to the emergency lane when a semi came thundering past hugging the right line. He sheared off her side mirror and some of her side bumper without slowing down even slightly. He either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care.
It was too much. Her sobs came so hard they drowned out the sound of the rain pounding the car roof. No one gives a good goddamn about anything or anyone else but themselves anymore! She took an unsteady breath. She paused. She thought. Maybe they never did. Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s karma, just desserts and all that. Justice. That must be it. Somehow I deserve the last month, year, life I’ve had.
Ginny had embraced a philosophy of self-determinism as a rock climber embraces the rope. She found comfort in a just world where everyone received exactly what they deserved. Any other philosophy equaled chaos and insanity for her, definitely too dangerous to contemplate. She pulled herself together again with the thought that she was not in fact being singled out for misery. She turned the key and carefully edged back onto the interstate.
She had only gone down the road another mile or so when she noticed the figure of a small woman standing by a car. The woman was waving a scarf up and down clearly asking for help. Not one car slowed down. No one even tapped their brakes for a moment. “Time to improve my karma,” Ginny said to the rain.
She turned onto the shoulder again and came to a slow stop. When she had come a little closer to her karmic destiny, Ginny could see the lady in distress was actually pregnant, extremely pregnant. She couldn’t help rolling her eyes in disgust. Out of all those people not one of them even slowed down for this pregnant lady in the pouring rain.
She was just trying to reason through this injustice when her husband's words came to her mind. "Don’t you dare stop for another hitchhiker. Do you hear me? Not one more. I don’t care if it’s Mother fucking Theresa! I’m not having you raped or robbed on the side of the road. If I find out you disobeyed me, I’ll give you such a whipping that you’ll not forget again!"
The memory caused a momentary pang of regret for having stopped but the grateful woman was now standing at her door. It’s too late to think anymore. This is the right thing. Screw him. I don’t have to tell him anyway.
Ginny lowered her window, “Trouble?” She asked with a sweet expression. The lady looked a bit younger than herself, and even though it was still raining hard, she could see the poor thing had been sobbing hard.
“Yes, my car broke down. I don’t know what’s wrong. There was a burning smell then the inside filled up with smoke. I pulled over because I thought it was on fire, but there was no fire. I tried to turn it on again but nothing.”
“There’s a service station at the next exit. I could take you there. They have a tow service and a mechanic and everything,” Ginny said. “I’m Ginny, Ginny Taylor.”
“I’m Lee,” the lady replied. “My laundry is still in the back here. I can grab a couple of towels. Hop on in.”
Ginny snatched a couple of folded towels off the top of her laundry basket. She spread one on the seat and handed the other to Lee as she climbed in. Then she sighed as she noticed the time on the dash clock. She was already almost half an hour late.
“You know what? I’m late to work and I suddenly find I don’t care. You’re soaking wet and I just can’t leave you at that cold smelly garage alone. There’s a coffee shop only a couple of doors down from the station, let’s go there first.”
Lee gave her the most grateful smile she’d ever seen. A smile that made whatever trouble she found herself in completely worth it. “They have a nice lounge in that coffee shop. You can go in there and put on a dry change of clothes. I have an old pair of jeans and a sweat shirt here,” she offered. “Maybe we could have a cup of coffee and a chat? You know, get comfortable, relax, give ourselves a break. What do you say?”
“Yes, please,” was all Lee could say as she choked back another sob.
She snapped off the radio so she could hear her own thoughts. She was approaching the top of the pass now. She could feel it. The fog was becoming a solid wall of white clouds that made seeing anything immediately before her almost impossible. One day, one bright beautiful spring day on the first of the month. I should have guessed. It was the first of April after all. She ruefully considered how easily she had been fooled before. Many times before.
She’d been easing off the gas for the last ten miles at least until her car was moving as slowly as the engine would permit. She still couldn’t see even the yellow stripe on the pavement.
She knew very well that what she was doing was foolhardy but she’d already missed three days of work this month due to a terrible cold that left her feeling soggy and chilled to her heart. Then she’d been late at least half a dozen times on top of that. Three of those late days had been exceptionally late days. All of her late days came with the same excuse, “The weather makes the road almost impassable!” The boss had the same retort each time, “Leave earlier then! Everyone else makes it on time!”
Her boss hated even a little tardiness in his employees. She knew she was already far beyond his tolerance, so even if she had to walk, she had made up her mind that she wasn’t turning back. No matter what.
She actually had no idea where she was, at least not visually. She’d been up and over the pass all of her life but when the clouds were this thick and the rain this thick, no one could say with any certainty where they were. She had nothing to base a guess on, no visible landmark or even a memorable pothole. The thickness of the clouds suggested she was very near the top, perhaps even moving slightly down on the far side of the highpoint. She took a long easy breath with that thought. If she was right, the worst would be over in a couple of minutes. The fog made the world seem dreamlike. Time even loafed by as if in a dream, accordingly the minutes lazed by so slowly she began to tense up again.
Like taking a deep breath with eyes closed then diving into a icy clear pool, passing out of the cloud had that sort of sensation. Shock and an odd clarity had seized her body and her senses. The water was thick, nearly frozen, but not quite, and it carried with it the chill of a forgotten January. Then, lightning charged the sky just in front of her and she involuntarily hit the brake.
Several things happened simultaneously then. Time suddenly sprang forward as if it were in a hurry to catch up to its real world counterpart. The traffic that was normally quite heavy at that time of day suddenly appeared as if it had condensed from the clouds like raindrops. The lightning flashed, she hit the brake, the car came to a complete halt slightly between the far right and middle lanes of I-91 just barely over the pass. Cars scattered across the lanes trying to avoid her as Ginny frantically attempted to move her car onto the shoulder. She had just cleared off to the emergency lane when a semi came thundering past hugging the right line. He sheared off her side mirror and some of her side bumper without slowing down even slightly. He either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care.
It was too much. Her sobs came so hard they drowned out the sound of the rain pounding the car roof. No one gives a good goddamn about anything or anyone else but themselves anymore! She took an unsteady breath. She paused. She thought. Maybe they never did. Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s karma, just desserts and all that. Justice. That must be it. Somehow I deserve the last month, year, life I’ve had.
Ginny had embraced a philosophy of self-determinism as a rock climber embraces the rope. She found comfort in a just world where everyone received exactly what they deserved. Any other philosophy equaled chaos and insanity for her, definitely too dangerous to contemplate. She pulled herself together again with the thought that she was not in fact being singled out for misery. She turned the key and carefully edged back onto the interstate.
She had only gone down the road another mile or so when she noticed the figure of a small woman standing by a car. The woman was waving a scarf up and down clearly asking for help. Not one car slowed down. No one even tapped their brakes for a moment. “Time to improve my karma,” Ginny said to the rain.
She turned onto the shoulder again and came to a slow stop. When she had come a little closer to her karmic destiny, Ginny could see the lady in distress was actually pregnant, extremely pregnant. She couldn’t help rolling her eyes in disgust. Out of all those people not one of them even slowed down for this pregnant lady in the pouring rain.
She was just trying to reason through this injustice when her husband's words came to her mind. "Don’t you dare stop for another hitchhiker. Do you hear me? Not one more. I don’t care if it’s Mother fucking Theresa! I’m not having you raped or robbed on the side of the road. If I find out you disobeyed me, I’ll give you such a whipping that you’ll not forget again!"
The memory caused a momentary pang of regret for having stopped but the grateful woman was now standing at her door. It’s too late to think anymore. This is the right thing. Screw him. I don’t have to tell him anyway.
Ginny lowered her window, “Trouble?” She asked with a sweet expression. The lady looked a bit younger than herself, and even though it was still raining hard, she could see the poor thing had been sobbing hard.
“Yes, my car broke down. I don’t know what’s wrong. There was a burning smell then the inside filled up with smoke. I pulled over because I thought it was on fire, but there was no fire. I tried to turn it on again but nothing.”
“There’s a service station at the next exit. I could take you there. They have a tow service and a mechanic and everything,” Ginny said. “I’m Ginny, Ginny Taylor.”
“I’m Lee,” the lady replied. “My laundry is still in the back here. I can grab a couple of towels. Hop on in.”
Ginny snatched a couple of folded towels off the top of her laundry basket. She spread one on the seat and handed the other to Lee as she climbed in. Then she sighed as she noticed the time on the dash clock. She was already almost half an hour late.
“You know what? I’m late to work and I suddenly find I don’t care. You’re soaking wet and I just can’t leave you at that cold smelly garage alone. There’s a coffee shop only a couple of doors down from the station, let’s go there first.”
Lee gave her the most grateful smile she’d ever seen. A smile that made whatever trouble she found herself in completely worth it. “They have a nice lounge in that coffee shop. You can go in there and put on a dry change of clothes. I have an old pair of jeans and a sweat shirt here,” she offered. “Maybe we could have a cup of coffee and a chat? You know, get comfortable, relax, give ourselves a break. What do you say?”
“Yes, please,” was all Lee could say as she choked back another sob.
5 comments:
Wow, what an intense and fullfilling story.
Great work here.
We've already talked about this one. The only thing I really saw that struck me as maybe needing tweaking was the bit where Ginny is sitting on the side of the road. She pulls herself together too quickly. Needs a short sentence to lubricate that transition from melting down to pulling herself together.
Thanks for the comments on this. I think I may have fixed the problem you noted, Orianna. Much obliged. :)
Actually, I did read this once before. It's a nice sentiment, but I have a couple of comments:
1. The Title - Is this really about April? Or about Lee or about Ginny? Or about kindness to strangers? How is this linked to TS Eliot? I suspect you just grabbed the phrase because it slips easily off the tongue, but unless you have some real reason for it to be there it becomes just a cliche instead of a clue or an homage.
2. Be careful of all adjectives, make sure they really add something important. Here, for instance, it seems that 'prattle' already suggests "indifferently"
"indifferently prattled on though through the same report as yesterday. "
3. Get rid of little words that clutter things up. Find strong verbs and nouns.
"Ginny was leaning forward with her eyes squinched and her mouth screwed up in a hopeless effort to see between the distorted remains of the fat flattened raindrops on her windshield." OK, this gets us the picture you want to portray, and we can all think of times we struggled to see thru the windshield. But the prose seems as tortured as Ginny was. Let's see how we can get rid of some of those words and say it cleaner. For example - and I'm not saying this is what you should use, but only pushing your prose a bit to goad you to work harder-
"Back scrunched, eyes squinched, teeth bared, Ginny struggled to see through the pancaked raindrops sliding down her windshield." [I don't know if pancaked works, but was trying to get something better that fat flattened. Had it without the 'd' first. Not sure, but this is to get you thinking anyway.] That takes us from 31 words to 18 and if we lost anything in meaning, we made up for it in style. We lost cluttering words like: was, and, with, and, up in a, of the.
4. Content - I'm a little concerned with the idea that Ginny can make up for skipping work without calling in by helping Lee. That's the trouble with the older generation of writers here, no respect for responsibility. :) Helping Lee was a noble act, but the way you foreshadowed this, it was less noble and more an excuse for a slacker to skip work. She's already been late regularly, she doesn't like her job. Now suddenly she has this great rationale to sit and have coffee all day, leaving her coworkers to cover for her. It takes away from what she's done. Is Lee a slacker? Is her boss a slave driver? We don't know. Her act would be much more compelling if Lee wanted to be at work, had an important presentation to make, was really dedicated to her work, yet for some internal reason you'll have to develop, decides helping this wet woman at the side of the road is more important. Maybe Ginny's life should be in danger. Anyway, that's my thought.
All very good observations, Steve. I knew after discussing this story with Orianna that I probably should have waited to post it until I had finished writing it. I knew exactly where the story was going after all and my readers didn't. So it made for a lot of questions like the ones you detailed.
I agree about that particular passage you pointed out. I even thought of the word pancake there but it wasn't what I wanted. You're also right that I should have worked a little harder for it. I'll go back and figure out where I can remove some excess verbiage. Let a poet go in proseland and they're likely to get a little wild... LOL
A little note about the title. I was indeed thinking of Eliot but also Chaucer. Canterbury tales is like an early group of short stories that have a bit of the quality of a morality play. Not a few of them have ironic twists. That part will be tied in the second half of this story.
The Wasteland is about a great many things but Eliot's reference to Canterbury tales in that first line is a large clue as to where he's going of course. And sterility is a constant theme as well as the morality thing. Sterility and impotence. I was definitely banking on the reader recognizing the reference in the title.
As for Ginny, she is not a slacker. Quite the contrary. The references to her tardiness and absences at the beginning of the story are more in the way of foreshadowing. There's a definite reason why she's been having trouble getting to work but she's unaware of that reason at the beginning of the story. She's sort of deliberately numbed herself to everything around her including her boss.
Anyway, thanks for those remarks. Very helpful and good for me to hear. I am definitely guilty of slacking a bit when it comes to prose. I think in part because I'm in too much of a rush to get the story down.
Post a Comment