The beginning of the end
September 24, 2008
He used to call his parents from there. Not often, just the bare minimum. Sometimes not for six weeks. It was hard to talk and he strained to sound like himself. They would ask how he was, and he would tell them that he was bored. "Bored, everything is just - I don't know. I'm just bored." He didn't tell them that he was seeing a doctor, or that they wouldn't let him near the guns anymore. Sometimes he wondered if they knew, if someone had told them, but he decided that they didn't. And so he told them he was bored.
Mark could hear the big paddles of the steamboat slapping the water steadily. They were just about a hair off from the piston firing, deep in the iron belly of that boat. The noise that the two made together was a fantastic one. It was slow and churning, powerful and sleepy. Thump-plump, thump-plump. And then there was the river gently washing against the hull. It was a light glittery sound, a flirtation with the awesome power of moving water further down. The night was sullen and still just now, the air warm and humid, almost a fog beneath the millions of glittering stars.
"What's wrong with you?" Bridget wanted to know. They were both in Mark's car, parked on the steamboat. They had been visiting a friend of Bridgets across the river; she lived in a little trailer at the end of a dirt road in the woods. There hadn't been a door on that trailer, just the screen, and there had been a shotgun in the open closet just inside. Mark hadn't drank much, just a beer or two, on account of the driving. They were on the ferry headed home now, with twenty minutes ahead of them. Thump-plump, thump-plump.
"Nothing. Just tired is all." Mark almost tried to lie a yawn, and then thought better of it.
"Somethings wrong, didn't you have any fun?" She was a pretty girl, brown hair and eyes with pouting lips and a beautiful shape. She was scowling just now though, had been since they left.
Mark had the creeping sensation that he hadn't been enough fun.
"I had fun."
"You didn't seem to be having much fun." Bridget sat back in the passenger seat looking away, and crossed her arms. Minutes ago, Bridget and her friend were talking and laughing, drinking and smoking. Mark had laughed at their jokes, and made conversation. After the handshakes and the nice-to-meet-yous, they had stepped out of that trailer and a curtain of cricket song and forest had dropped down over them.
"I had fun, really. I'm just driving home now is all. It's nothing." Mark looked out of the window at all the stars.
"You didn't seem to be having fun. Something's wrong." Bridget pressed her back hard against her seat. Mark couldn't see her, but he felt her body tighten. She turned, looking at the side of his face, expectantly.
"Nothing's wrong, I'm just not drunk, and now I'm driving home." It slipped. His pulse sped; alert and silent he looked back at her.
"I'm not drunk." She said sharp, looking fiery at him.
"I'm not saying you are, just that we were there for a couple hours, it was fun, now it's late and I'm taking us back. That's all."
"You're so different now. You're not the same as you used to be." She uncrossed her arms and pushed her palms against the upholstery beneath her. He had felt this coming. Like an arthritic knee before rain.
"What do you mean, different?" What else was there to say.
"I don't know." She looked out her window. There was nothing but whitewashed metalwork on her side.
"OK." Silence.
"Just different is all, I can't explain it."
A minute went by. Thump-plump, thump-plump.
"I don't know. Like, like - I don't know." She looked at him again, then away. He should have said something, maybe he could have derailed this.
"What?"
"I don't know. Like - well..."
"You don't have to say it."
"I don't know, you're just not the same. You used to be so much fun, and now, now - I don't know. Forget it." She looked out of her window at the riveted steel wall of the steamboat.
"OK."
Thump-plump, thump-plump.
"You're never fun anymore." She was still looking at that wall, talking to it.
Mark felt his stomach go rigid, and then his throat all tense and dry. A bullet of anger had shot through his gut with a wide ribbon of loss tacked onto it like a streamer. That loss fluttered around in there for a second, and then there was the empty. The heavy empty that weighed enough to pin him to his seat. He looked out of his window at the stars. Something hurt really bad. Whatever it was, it was terrible. A minute passed, breezy and soft.
"I'm sorry." She whispered, crying quietly. One hand was over her face, and the other reached for him.
Thump-plump, thump-plump.
"It's fine." He stared out the window into the warm air.
Tags for this piece: story depression creative relationships sad