William Cass

Grasping at Straws

Sunday night.  All the lights were out.  Except for the flicker of the television, the room was dark.  I’d been lying on the couch for the past few hours channel-surfing, dozing.  I was on my own now, with no one to answer to, so what else did I have to do?  For once, my L.A. neighborhood was quiet, with no noises from any of the other apartments, no vehicles passing, no dogs barking. 

Finally, shortly before midnight, I turned off the television, took a leak, and got into bed.  Before pulling up the sheet, I checked my cell.  A series of phone messages suddenly came through all at once together in a single moment, seven or eight of them.  They had originally been left at various times throughout the day on Friday and were all from my mechanic, Miguel, who’d been working on my broken-down car.  They began early that morning with him telling me he’d found something additional wrong with my engine and asking for my permission to fix it along with the originally agreed-upon repair.  He was sorry, Miguel said, but it was needed for the transmission to function at all.  He wasn’t sure of the cost involved; it depended on where he could find parts, but it wouldn’t be cheap: close to six, seven hundred extra for sure, he said, maybe a little north of that.   Several additional messages followed every couple of hours thereafter, briefer but of a similar ilk, and more urgent.  Mid-afternoon, he left one saying he’d located and ordered the parts, and they’d be delivered within the hour.  He paused then, and I pictured him rubbing his short-cropped hair the way he did when he was anxious or unsure.   

Finally, he said, “I know you need the car first thing Monday for…”  I heard him hesitate, then say, “…for that trip, so unless I hear otherwise from you, I’m going to go ahead and complete the repair with the new parts.”  There was another long pause before he said he hoped that was okay.   

His very last message of the bunch was left at seven-thirty that night saying he’d just finished with the repairs and I could pick the car up as soon as his shop opened on Monday.  I knew he closed at five; I hadn’t lost my own job so long ago that I’d forgotten how lousy it felt to work that late on a Friday.  I heard him blow out a breath; whether it was from further frustration or sheer exhaustion, I couldn’t tell.  It didn’t really matter to me because I didn’t have the money for the extra repair and I hadn’t authorized it.  Why those messages all came through to me in bulk the way they had – delayed out there somewhere in the ether-sphere – wasn’t my fault.  I planned to tell him as much in the morning. 

“I’ll pay for the original estimate I signed off on,” I whispered into the darkness, and found myself gritting my teeth.  “Not a penny more.”           

I powered down the cell and concentrated on nodding my head.  That plan sounded all right to me; it seemed fair enough.  Still, something stiffened suddenly inside of me when I thought of telling Miguel the next morning, and I threw the cell across the room.  I heard it clunk against the baseboard on the opposite wall.  It didn’t help the way I felt, not a bit. 

I took an Uber to Miguel’s shop in the morning and waited for him with my daypack in front of his office.  I stopped to glance inside my car where it was parked near the entrance to his lot; the protective paper he spread on the floor mats while he worked was wrinkled but still there.  Miguel came around the corner of his shop shortly before eight.  The glance he gave me was furtive; I kept the one I returned as even as I was able. 

“Guess you finally got my messages,” he said as he unlocked the office door.  His voice sounded intentionally peeved. 

“Yeah,” I told him, “But not until late last night.  They all came around midnight in a big group.  Didn’t know a thing before that.” 

He made a snorting sound as I followed him inside.  He flipped on the ceiling lights, went behind the counter, rifled through some invoices next to the cash register, found the one he was looking for, and pushed it my way.  The key to my car was taped on top.  I looked at the total on the bottom and whistled, shaking my head. 

“Yeah,” I heard him say.  “I know it’s more than you were hoping for, but it was needed to fix your car.  I explained all that on one of my messages.” 

“You mean one of those I didn’t get until late last night,” I said.  “And one I never authorized.  One I never would have if I’d gotten the message when you left it.” 

“Not my fault you didn’t.”  His attempt to meet my gaze looked determined but unsteady.  He pointed.  “Your car would still be sitting out there broken down without the additional repair.  No way you could leave on…go anywhere today.”  

“That should have been for me to figure out.”  I set my jaw hard.  “Not you.” 

We stared at each other.  A fly buzzed somewhere in the stillness of the office.  The morning was already hot, and a bead of sweat trickled down the side of his forehead.  He was a tall, skinny guy; we both were.  We’d sat at the end of the bench together on our high school basketball team, but were never particularly close friends.  Close enough, though, that I’d been bringing my cars to him to work on for over a decade.  Never a problem between us before. 

His cell phone began buzzing in his jeans’ pocket.  He fished it out, studied the screen, and scowled.  “Listen,” he said.  “I have to take this.  Diego’s school.  He got on the bus this morning not feeling well.”  Diego was Miguel’s son who was in the same grade as my own son, Todd; they’d had occasional playdates together.  Miguel gestured with the phone to the closest mechanic’s bay attached to the office.  “I’ll be right back.” 

I watched him hurry around the corner and disappear into the darkened bay.  I waited long enough to hear his muted voice move farther inside the bay before taking out my wallet.  I took four one-hundred-dollar bills from it – slightly more than the original estimate for the repair – set them on top of the invoice, and peeled off the key.  I trotted outside to my car, got inside, started the engine, and drove out of the lot without looking back.  I didn’t bother returning to my place for anything else; I just got on the I-5 a few blocks up from Miguel’s shop and headed north towards where my wife, Molly, and I had agreed for us to meet with Todd.  She’d chosen a place to meet that was about a three-hour drive north.  If I kept my speed up and had no major delays, I thought I could still make it.  I hoped so, anyway.  It was the first time she’d agreed to do anything like that since our separation, and I didn’t want to screw it up. 

I managed to chase away thoughts of Miguel on the drive.  There was plenty of traffic to navigate and concentrate on through the suburbs, but then it thinned out before the Grapevine.  The 99 was even less crowded, and there was almost nothing after Bakersfield except the occasional tang of manure from fields the road split.  I pulled onto the designated frontage road a few minutes after eleven and saw Molly’s car parked in the meager shade of a lone tree in the near corner of a parking lot that served a gas station-restaurant.  She stood leaning up against the hood with an arm behind Todd.  He’d just turned seven a few months earlier, a string bean like me, dressed in a tank top, baggy shorts, and flip-flops.  As I pulled up next to them, he didn’t look up from where he stood scratching in the dirt with a stick; Molly glanced at her watch, then fixed me with a cold, steady glare.  

I got out of the car slowly, came up beside Todd, and cradled his head against my hip.  “Hey, there, big guy,” I said.  “Been missing you.” 

He didn’t say anything, kept scratching with his stick, but I felt his head lean into me.  I rubbed his shoulder, looked at Molly, and said, “Thanks for bringing him, for meeting like this.” 

She gave a stiff nod. 

I nodded, too, several times.  The morning had grown hotter, especially inland where we were, and her dark hair was matted against her forehead.  Something clenched inside of me as I watched her blow a wisp of it from in front of her face and tuck it behind an ear.  “So,” I said.  “How have you been?” 

“How do you suppose?”           

“Yeah, well, listen.  I know you don’t want to hear it from me again, but I’m sorry.” 

“Sorry enough to break up with her?” 

I cocked my head, looked away, then back.  “Things have changed.  Gotten quieter.” 

“Quieter, huh?”  Molly gave out a huff.  “Well, you go ahead and have a nice, quiet two hours with our son.”  She glanced at her watch again.  “Less now.  I’ll be back to pick him up at one.  Don’t be late.” 

I watched her lean down, peck him on the top of the head, then climb back into her car.  I stepped out of the way with Todd.   He still hadn’t looked up.  She drove away without regarding us.  Where she’d go, I had no idea.  She’d set the meeting spot saying it was roughly half-way for each of us, although I knew it was less than two hours to her parents’ house where she’d taken Todd after she moved out.  Much too far, though, for her to return there in the interim.  Aside from the bank of restrooms next to the restaurant and gas station, there wasn’t much of anything in any direction that I was aware of except miles of agricultural fields.  I supposed she’d just drive around through them.  Maybe find a cottonwood along an irrigation ditch offering enough shade to sit next to and wait, or some livestock somewhere to watch graze; from our drives together to visit her family, I knew there were operations like that the way she’d come. 

Molly left a little cloud of dust in her wake.  After she’d turned onto the frontage road, I gave Todd’s shoulder a pat and said, “How about if we get us some lunch?  Bet they have chocolate shakes inside.  Maybe they’ll even make yours a malt.”  

The grin he gave me was gap-toothed.  I didn’t know if he was waiting for her to leave before looking my way, but regardless, it made my heart quicken.  I gave his shoulder another rub, and we walked across the lot together to the restaurant.  As we did, he clutched my hand tightly.           

The worn-out inside of the air-conditioned restaurant was done up in a roadside diner-type motif: red vinyl booths, spinning stools at a counter, travelogue memorabilia hung half-hazardly on the walls, a juke box in the corner.  It wasn’t very crowded.  We settled in at the counter, and a waitress set places in front of us; Todd’s included a children’s placemat with pictures to color on which she set a tiny box of crayons; she poured coffee for me.  We glanced over the menu quickly, and when Todd asked her, she said she could make his chocolate malt.  I stuck with coffee, and we both ordered cheeseburgers and fries.  A song I vaguely recognized played on the juke box, some ballad from the sixties or seventies.           

I watched Todd immediately open his crayon box and begin coloring a family of teddy bears.  His forehead furrowed into concentration in that way of his, one much the same as his mother’s.  I waited a few moments before asking, “So how’s school going?” 

He shrugged, kept coloring, and said, “I told you my teacher is a boy.  He wears bow ties and socks Mom calls ‘argyle’.  He’s nice.”           

“Made any new friends?” 

He shrugged again.  “A girl across the aisle likes dinosaurs, too.  She has a bunch she takes out to recess.  She’s not supposed to; no toys allowed.  But the duties let us play with them together in a corner by the Big Toy.  She’s nice, too.  Then there’s Aunt Tina’s son.  They come over a lot.  He’s younger than me, but he’s okay.” 

“Your cousin, Lucas.” 

“Yeah.”  He squinted up at me with a frown.  “Luke, you mean.” 

“That’s right.  Luke.” 

“You want to come home with us, they’ll probably be there at Papa’s and Gram’s.” 

“I don’t think so.”  I put my hand on his shoulder again.  “Not this time.” 

“When, then?” 

The big, wide eyes he looked at me with were Molly’s, too.  I swallowed and said, “I’m not sure.”  

“When I ask Mom when you’re coming up or when we’re going back, she just starts crying.” 

I felt my lips purse and gave his shoulder a squeeze.  The waitress set his malt in front of him then, most of it in a tall, frosted glass with whipped cream on top, and the rest in a perspiring metal canister.  Todd’s eyes grew even wider as he pulled the glass in front of him and took a slurp through the straw standing still in the middle next to a tall spoon.   

“Wow,” he told her.  He licked off a dollop of whipped cream from the top.  “The place my dad takes me at home for these doesn’t have two containers like this.  Just a paper cup with a lid.  It’s a drive-thru.” 

She smiled and glanced back and forth between us, a heavy-set, middle-aged woman with purple highlights at the tips of her graying hair.  “Well, kiddo, you enjoy that, then.  Your burgers will be out in a minute.” 

She went away.  I watched Todd kneel up on his stool and alternate his attention back and forth between the picture he was coloring and the malt.  I thought about his room in our apartment that I’d left untouched since they moved away.  I’d left Molly’s things untouched, too.  She’d gone off with Todd in a hurry the morning after she discovered my affair, right after I’d left for work.  She’d folded a short, terse note on the kitchen counter telling me where they were going.  When I tried calling, she wouldn’t answer, but we had begun texting recently, just perfunctory stuff.  And she’d also started letting Todd call me on my cell every few nights, so that was another step in the right direction, as was this rendezvous.  As context, I’d told Miguel about those things before he began working on my car last week.  At some point, while I did, unexpectedly, I felt my voice catch.  I thought I’d recovered quickly and he hadn’t noticed, but when I was done, Miguel reached over, clasped my arm, and said he understood.  I didn’t tell him anything about my demotion at work, though.  I hadn’t told Molly anything about that either.                                    

When our meals came, Todd gave a happy yelp, and the waitress and I exchanged small smiles.  I tucked an open napkin under his chin, cut his burger in half, squirted ketchup onto his plate for the fries, and gently took the crayon he was using from him.  I set it next to the others in the open box, watched him start eating, then joined him myself.  I waited until we’d both chewed a couple of mouthfuls to ask, “So aside from the crying, how’s your mom been doing?” 

Todd shrugged again, took another slurp of malt, and said, “Okay, I guess, but she seems sad all the time.  Stares out our bedroom window a lot.” 

“She like working with Papa at his store?” 

“I guess.” 

“Aunt Tina still works there, too?” 

He nodded.  “Grams, too, when she’s not watching me.” 

I nodded myself and struggled to think of something else to say.  We’d covered most regular topics during our phone conversations.  Not much new to broach except what the future might hold, and I didn’t want to go there with him.  I couldn’t even enter his room at home anymore; it was too hard.  Truth be known, sometimes when I was in the apartment alone, its silence seemed to almost scream.  Especially lately.  I couldn’t say for certain any longer who had actually initiated my affair, but I knew that I didn’t see the same hopeful future for us that she did.  The steam had gone out of that for me.  Mostly, as time went on, I just felt more and more like an idiot about things.  About the way I’d acted, the decisions I’d made and those I hadn’t.           

The song on the jukebox changed again, so someone must have selected a new batch of tunes, though I hadn’t been aware of it.  Todd only ate a few bites of his burger and fries before pushing away his plate, setting his napkin on it, and resuming his coloring between slurps of malt.  When the waitress came by and asked if he was done with his meal, he nodded without looking at her.  She took his plate away and I slowly finished my own, checking for messages on my cell phone as I did.  There were two phone calls from Miguel that I didn’t listen to, but no others.  None from Molly, and no texts from her either.  I pictured her out there driving aimlessly through the fields thinking whatever thoughts she had, and found myself pinching the bridge of my nose until it hurt.  Sitting there next to our son, I looked around that tired, half-full diner in the middle of nowhere and wondered how the hell I’d gotten there.  How the hell I’d gotten us all to that place. 

I glanced at my watch when the waitress came by to take my plate: still not quite an hour left before Molly would be back for Todd.  I asked the waitress if there was anything special to do around there.  She considered for a moment, then shrugged, and said, “Not much.  We do have a handful of arcade-style video games in that passageway, if your son likes that sort of thing.”  She gestured with her chin.  “Over there where the restaurant joins the gas station store.” 

Todd gave a little gasp and tugged at my arm.  “You bet I’m interested.  Can I, Dad?” 

I sighed, but was glad to have the new activity for him.  I took out my wallet and asked her, “Can you make change?” 

“Machines take ones and fives, give credits.”           

I nodded, leafed through my wallet, and handed Todd a couple of each.  He gave me a kiss on the cheek, wet and sticky with malt, and we watched him scamper off into the passageway.           

“Cute kid,” she told me, lifting my plate.  “You two travelling somewhere?” 

“Nah,” I said.  “Just having a little get-together until his mom picks him up.” 

“I see,” she said.  Something in the look she gave me told me that experience was one she was familiar with.  “Shucks,” she said more quietly. The music from the juke box ended for a moment, replaced by electronic pings from a video game.  When a new song started, she asked, “Top that coffee off for you?” 

“Sure, thanks.” 

She did that, turned our check upside down on the counter, and I watched her walk with my plate through a swinging door into the kitchen. 

I went ahead then, brought my cell phone to my ear, and listened to Miguel’s messages.  The first was as irate as I’d ever heard him.  “You son-of-a-bitch…” and “How dare you…” and “I’d better get the rest of that payment or else I’ll…”.  The second came an hour or so afterwards and was more tempered.  “Listen,” he said.  “Maybe you intended to make arrangements for the rest of the payment.  I know you were in a hurry, had to hit the road to meet Molly and Todd.”  He paused, and I pictured him rubbing his head.  “Anyway, listen, give me a call, so we can work this out.”   

I set down my cell phone and thought back to when he and I finally got in at the end of a blow-out basketball game together in high school and started a fast break in the wrong direction; that’s how inept we were.  Thankfully, we both missed shots at our opponent’s goal before time expired, but our shared humiliation afterwards knew no bounds.  I felt a little smile crease my lips now thinking about it.  That went away, though, when I remembered Molly waiting for me outside the locker room after that game.  We’d just started dating and she said nothing when she saw the pained look in my eyes, just took my hand and suggested we go for a walk, which we did.  She didn’t say much on the walk either, but the way she gently rubbed the back of my hand with her thumb was about the most comforting thing I’d ever felt. 

I sat there another fifteen minutes or so thinking more about things.  I thought about the passage of time that began a couple of months earlier when the principal where I’d taught first told me about how declining enrollment to start the school year might mean needing to consolidate a few classes.  If so, he warned me, I’d be one of the first teachers that would have to be let go because of my low seniority.  If that happened, class sizes would increase and, he promised, he could hire me back as instructional aide for one of them; something I’d done part time in college and a job that wouldn’t pay a third of what I was making as a teacher.  When I told Molly about that, she didn’t really seem to care; her attention, like always, continued to center on Todd.  But the single woman who taught in the classroom across from mine commiserated with me about the unfairness of it all.  As the consolidation threat grew more serious, she began buying me drinks after work so I could blow off steam; she listened to me whine and complain with nothing but flattery and support.  Her hand began lingering longer on mine when she clutched it for encouragement, and things just developed, got more serious between us, I guess, as time went on.  Especially when the classroom consolidations at work became a reality and I reluctantly began my demeaning new position.  I don’t remember the details, but I do know that my fall was pretty hard and quick at the time, both with her and from anything close to grace.  

My coffee grew cold, and I became aware of Todd’s occasional shouts of excitement from the passageway.  Finally, I blew out a breath, turned over our check, left some bills for payment that included a generous tip for our waitress, and joined him there.  I found him engrossed in a warfare game that involved a lot of explosions and flashing lights.  He was standing on a short plastic stool, and each time he fired his imaginary weapon, a puff of air escaped him.   

When that game ended, he asked me to play one with him.  He’d used up all his credits except a few on an old-fashioned pinball machine, so I inserted enough quarters to allow us both to play, and we took turns doing that.  Soon, we were both yelling at the machine.  It had been years since I’d last played, but he began mimicking the shakes I remembered from those days and gave the machine as I manipulated the levers.  He won by a few points and made a victorious thrust with his fist in the air as I scooped him off his stool from behind into a tight hug.   

I checked my watch again after I’d set him down.  “Come on,” I told him.  “Your mom will be coming for you soon, but we can play catch until she gets here.  I brought our mitts and a ball.” 

He let out a whoop and held my hand again as we returned to my car in the parking lot, skipping a little to keep up with my longer strides.  I got our mitts and ball out of my daypack on the passenger seat, situated Todd about ten yards away from me, and lobbed the ball to him.  He made an awkward return throw that bounced once into my mitt.  He’d just started playing before they’d left, joining his first Little League team at the lowest level, but was enthusiastic about learning the game.  I’d looked forward to working with him to help him improve, but of course, that opportunity never came.  And I didn’t use the current occasion to try any new instruction with him, content instead just to pass the time we had left tossing the ball back and forth and tracking down his errant throws.  None of that seemed to bother Todd, though; his big grin never left his face, and he made the same, pleased puffing sound each time he threw the ball that he had while maneuvering levers on the video games. 

Not long afterwards, Molly drove back into the parking lot.  I didn’t have to look at my watch to know she was a little early.  She parked again in the bit of shade the tree provided and got out of her car.  I made a last catch of one of Todd’s bouncing throws, then nodded towards his mom and said, “Okay, bud.  Time to wrap things up.” 

Molly and I both watched him frown, then shake his head.  I walked up to him slowly, wrapped his head against my hip like I had when I first arrived, and said, “We’ll get together again soon.” 

He said, “Come back with us.”  When I looked down, his eyes were shut tight.  “Or we can go with you.” 

“Not this time,” I told him quietly.  “Come on now.” 

But when I lifted my hand off his shoulder, he wrapped his arms around my thigh and latched on, shaking his head.  I looked at Molly.  She shook her head, too, but more slowly, looking past us with an expression that was equal parts exasperation and sadness.  There was plenty I would have liked to say to her, most of it filled with regret, but I knew that wasn’t the time for it, not with Todd there and clinging to me the way he was. 

“Todd,” Molly said, her voice hard and stern.  “We need to go.  Now.  I have to get to work.” 

“Come on, son,” I said again and rubbed Todd’s back.  He didn’t let go of my thigh but did allow me to walk him stiffly to the far side of Molly’s car.  She climbed in the driver side, and between the two of us, we got him into the passenger seat and buckled in.  He kept his head down the whole time, not looking at either of us.  His mitt was still on.  I patted it and said, “You keep that for next time.” 

Then I kissed the top of his head as Molly had earlier, closed his door, and stepped away from the car.  As I did, something fell in me like a stone dropping into a deep, deep well.  Molly put the car in gear.   

“Thanks again,” I told her through Todd’s open window.  Then I heard myself say, “Listen, wait.”  I paused there in the heat of the early afternoon watching her shake her head again, staring straight ahead.  Todd began to squirm and sniffle.  “That’s okay,” I said to her finally.  “Go ahead, get going.  I’ll call you.” 

She nodded, the same expression never leaving her face.  I raised my hand to her as she drove away, but only Todd looked over.  He made the same gesture, it seemed to me, meekly.  I wondered what he’d think later about this time in his life, how he’d remember me, and my heart became an aching fist.  My own father had left when I was about his age.  I stood and watched them go until the ribbon of dust they’d left in their wake had dissipated entirely. 

I only stopped once on the way back to use the restroom and for gas.  While I waited for my tank to fill, I listened to another phone message from Miguel.  It was short and didn’t even address me by name.  He simply said, “You know what, forget about what you owe me on the car.  You’ve got a lot going on right now.  Take care of that.”  Afterwards, I could hear some sort of machinery in the background, maybe a hydraulic drill or an air compressor, then the line went dead.  I felt my shoulders slump and powered my phone down completely; I couldn’t face any more messages from him.        

For the rest of the drive, I just let my thoughts tumble over themselves.  I had plenty of time for that because I soon ran into an accident that left me sitting still waiting for it to clear for almost a half-hour, and then hit bad traffic once I got back to the outskirts of Los Angeles.  So, I had lots of opportunity to think about things and form a kind of plan, as scattered and disjointed as it may have been.      

When I got to my neighborhood, I stopped at a drugstore and bought a small manilla envelope, then drove over to Miguel’s shop.  I was relieved to find that it had already closed when I got there.  I put the remaining four twenty-dollar bills that I had left in my wallet inside the envelope, then took off my watch.  It had been an expensive high school graduation gift from my grandfather, and Miguel had always admired it.  I dropped it in the envelope, too, sealed it, scribbled Miguel’s name on the front, then got out of my car and walked up to his office door.  I glanced inside: the office was dark, no one around.  I opened the mail slot below the door’s window, dropped the envelope through, and heard it plop onto the linoleum inside.      

I drove next over to the open-air bar where the woman I was involved with and I were going to meet a little later for happy hour.  I didn’t bother going home to shower and clean up first because I had no plans to go inside.  I knew I’d just sit in the parking lot until she drove up, then get out, and say to her what I’d been rehearsing as best I could before leaving again.  I’d considered calling or sending a text to end things, but felt like it was something I needed to do face to face.       

After that, I guessed I’d drive back to my empty apartment, listen to its stillness some more, avoid Todd’s room and my wife’s things, and just wait to call Molly until I knew he’d be in bed asleep.  Then, I’d say what I had to say to her, as well, and hope for the best.  I suppose that hope was all I could really do at that point.  Hope and pray.  I thought about Todd clinging to my thigh and Molly tucking that stray strand of hair behind her ear and told myself I’d muster as much of both as I possibly could.  Not many options available to me otherwise.  I knew I was grasping at straws, but what choice did I have?  As much as I wished otherwise, none that I could see.  Not a single one.    

William Cass has had over 250 short stories accepted for publication in a variety of literary magazines such as December, Briar Cliff Review, and Zone 3.  He was a finalist in short fiction and novella competitions at Glimmer Train and Black Hill Press, and won writing contests at Terrain.org and The Examined Life Journal.  He has received one Best Small Fictions nomination, three Pushcart nominations, and his short story collection, Something Like Hope & Other Stories, was recently released by Wising Up Press.  He lives in San Diego, California.