…..It was early in the afternoon. He had taken a break from walking and was sitting on an old bench in the park of the little town. It seemed like a nice place to live; he was glad that he’d had a chance to see it before leaving the state. While he rested his feet, he took a water bottle from his backpack and had a drink before putting it away. He would look for a cafe or a grocery store deli while heading to the bus station. There was a long road ahead of him, and he would need food and more water for the journey.
The phone in his jacket pocket rang. He took it out, looked at the display for a moment, and then decided it was okay to answer right now. He held the phone up to his ear as he leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Hello.”
Her voice sounded like it always did now: controlled, tentative, intentionally neutral. “Hi, Jack. How are you?”
“I’m all right.”
A pause. Then, “Where are you these days?” The question was said in a light tone, but that didn’t fool him.
“I’m on the move. Passing through Colorado right now.”
“Where are you heading?” The end of the question was bitten off, as if she had realized she was going too far and would like to unsay it. Too late.
“Not sure right now. Somewhere.” It was the usual answer. And a truthful one.
There was more silence. “Do you need anything? I could send something General Delivery if you told me what town you were heading towards. Or where you’ll be sometime soon.” She qualified the explanation, to give him space.
He thought about it, and then replied in the negative. “But thank you.” He knew she was just trying to be helpful. Like when she gave him this phone, which she was paying for. He seldom used it, except for answering her calls. Sometimes. And he had disabled the GPS tracking as soon as he received it. He didn’t want to be dependent on anyone or anything; he didn’t want to be found, especially by her. But he kept the phone just to give her some peace of mind. He figured he owed it to her, after what had happened.
“Jack…” her voice trailed off uncertainly. He knew what that meant.
“I know.” He passed his hand over his eyes and considered whether he should say anything else, and then decided it was the least he could do for her. “I love you, too.”
There was another long silence. He could feel the intensity in it, and he waited, knowing she had something to say. But when she finally did speak, her abrupt abandonment of generalities caught him off guard.
“I’m not angry with you any more, Jack—don’t you know that? It wasn’t all your fault, your decision. I agreed, remember? I know it was wrong, but we did what we thought was best at the time. I forgive you. I’ve forgiven myself.”
He jerked upright. “But I can’t,” he responded harshly. “And I can’t forget what I did. Not ever.” He stopped speaking as suddenly as she had, earlier. “I have to go now.”
There was no response from the other end, but he knew it wasn’t silent where she was. He knew she was trying to keep her crying as quiet as possible. Their calls always ended like that, but there was nothing he could do about it. He waited for her to speak again, trying to keep his own pain under control.
“Please take care, Jack. Be careful wherever you go. I’ll call again.”
“You do that.” He heard hesitancy, as if she was going to say something else, and then she hung up.
He turned off the phone and pocketed it. Then he leaned back on the park bench and closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind. Her calls always had that effect, scrambling his thinking; this one would haunt him for quite a while. What would everything be like if it hadn’t happened? Was he going to be on the road like this forever? Would he ever be able to see her again? At that, he opened his eyes and sat forward, dragging his thoughts away from a past that could not be changed.
He took a deep breath, picked up his backpack, and got to his feet. He thought he’d seen a cafe sign down the road a bit. It was time to go.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
copyright 2019, by Mary M. Isaacs
(included in the collection, Holy Innocence available on Amazon here or the link on the lower right sidebar)
You can run but can’t hide if you have a cell phone. I call my cell phone my umbilical cord just so my family and work and friends can always get ahold of me.
Life. It’s a trip. Goes fast too. We all get off into eddies that draw us in while the river rages past.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsYBtfQ3QDo&feature=emb_logo
Lots of unanswered questions there. Without reading more I guessing an abortion?
Interesting and intense read. The hook is set, so I’ll look forward to the rest of the story.
wow Joe.
.
.
.
.
.
.
..
I think yes.
Jack is an antifa assassin….on the road for a crime he wished he had commited…but didn’t. Unable to purchase a handgun, Jack attempted to throw a molotov cocktail at the police and instead, lit a fellow rioter on fire.
Now, doomed to a life on the road with only his trust fund and white privilege to rely on, Jack must make peace with his past….by running away from it forever.
No No No. They voted for Biden.
@Bad_Brad: You were just sitting there waiting for the perfect moment to drop in that comment, weren’t you?
…Biden your time.
😉
No Brad. She voted for Biden, Jack voted for Trump. She’s a flaming, Hillary-type Liberal and he failed to complete his honeydo list. She threatened to Arkancide him!
If that’s the case, run Jack run away as far as you can and ditch the cell phone. How does the story really end, enquiring minds want to know. Mary M. Isaacs writing has a hint of Flannery O’Connor in it.
The guilt of a repentant leftist…..
Actually I was going with got drunk and ripped the “Do Not Remove This Tag” off their mattress.
you can’t run away from your own guilt, no matter where you go. you can’t run away from your own mind … unless you’re a sociopath or a demonic’rat … but I repeat myself.
we can only deal w/ what we have done & move on w/ our lives … I don’t ask forgiveness from someone I have wronged if I can’t forgive myself. I must wear my wrongs about me. they are mine, I forged them. I must own up to them & tell the aggrieved that I am sorry, if I care about them I regret my actions, learn from my mistakes & try to make amends & live my life better, particularly towards the aggrieved. as the one that caused them the hurt, I owe it to them.
if I run away I also hurt the aggrieved party that may care enough about me to forgive me. running away is a selfish act that further exacerbates the situation. what sort of jerk would further punish someone that has been wronged by them, who cares about them, even more?
… being an ass tonight, ain’t I? …. 😉
“wow Joe.
.
.
.
.
.
.
..
I think yes…”
Abortion was definitely not my first reaction but after seeing Joe6pak’s and BFH’s comments I looked at it in a different way.
While I saw some comments in that exchange that might support that conclusion, there was still more in that passage that made me think otherwise. Then I realized who the author was, and abortion became a more likely possibility.
Bottom line, I really don’t know. It would be nice to hear it from the author’s lips, just what the subject was between the two characters.
besides … I like Burr’s summation better
although, I think they killed her parents to get her trust fund, & he felt bad ’cause she took the hit & is now languishing in prison, & he’s an pantifa asshole spending the cash
… that’s why it’s called “The ‘Cell’ Phone”
(cue up ‘Jailhouse Rock’)
Reflecting back upon the moment that Karen (sorry, I didn’t catch her name in all that) removed her blouse and brassiere, revealing her ample and pendulous breasts to Jack, he was able to ignore the hairy mole on the tip of her nose for 20 minutes. But once he cleaned himself up, Jack sprinted away from the place like a scalded palomino.
Several days later Jack experienced a persistent itch in his nether region and realized she had given him a permanent gift that could not be assuaged with an over the counter cream from the CVS.
This is Creative Writing 101, right?
This story is about grief and how some deal with it. It could be about abortion, the loss of a loved one, especially a child. To try to make it about voting for Biden or tearing off a mattress tag is pure asshole-ish….
Your an ass Bad_Brad, a lot more then you realize….
And you’re a stone cold loser Willy. That’s why the love of your life showed you the gate. NO ONES that stupid Willy. Fuck off.
Imagine if we could go back in time and change history….like the libs do….if that were possible, there would be no history and the libs would love it.
Oops, bad timing on my part….I thought we were having a little fun here but it all went south, real fast.
I haven’t a clue where the story started or was going. Any more than Jack knew where he was going or would reveal were his next destinations. But I enjoyed the author’s writing style.
…..annnnnnnd my point is made…..
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ,
I saw this daily quote the other day while I was trying to decide if I should feel guilty for my ‘brutally honest’ behavior a few days prior. Seems I found this quote just when I needed it…and I didn’t give my actions another thought.
“Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.” – Benjamin Disraeli
Script reminded me of every terrible dialogue from 1960s movie ever made. Sorry.
You think so Moron? The point was made, but not the one you intended. Just keep attacking me and see where this goes. Read some of the comments above mine dick head.
Man this thread went angsty. Like a H.S. prom that had a breathalyzer to get past the doors…
I liked the story. It’s reminiscent of one of Hemingways’ short stories, “The Sea Change”, where nothing is explicitly said between the couple but it’s inferred she’s leaving him for another gal.
It could be about abortion….or something about a cherished Hot Wheels collection. I didn’t stress over it. I went with antifa, others went with abortion.
All I know is I’m reassured that the power of the written word can still upset a lot of apple carts.
Yay literacy.
Aaron Burr,
Can you imagine if it had been written in ebonics?!?
My ‘Bama Phone…
I had trouble with him running away because he agreed to his wife’s abortion that he now regrets. Why would he run? Doesn’t seem very plausible nor grown up. Thus my concoction for him running.
Hey Aaron, Willy and his girl friend Dick chased you out of here for awhile. But you cut him that much slack? That son of a bitch has been after me for a lot longer. The fact that I refuse to leave drives him nuts. So how about a little honesty here.
Hemingway writing in ebonics?
“My nigga’ Nick Adams?”
Why not, it would still be better than anything Joyce ever wrote.
No one ran me out. I decided to go work on some cars.
I made that decision because whenever the thread becomes about me instead of the topic, I wander off.
It’s not my website.
I had a run in with Brad once. Simply because I didn’t like the way he was treating a different poster. I said, “pick on me instead” and he did. I wandered off and he tired himself out after a while.
I didn’t go after anybody else because I didn’t want a repeat of the earlier confrontation. They never make people happy and the long term side effects is toxicity in the body.
So to recap: not my website, I’m Godlike in my humility and humbleness, and I gave up reading anything I didn’t write in the comments section of a website years ago.
Please give this post 74 thumbs up as I return to wrenching on my 76 Westphalia. Workin’ real hard for my Aryan merit badge on this one.
Well, as long as we’re clearing the air, and I know readers that remember this well, “I had a run in with Brad once. Simply because I didn’t like the way he was treating a different poster. I said, “pick on me instead” ”
That’s total bull shit. You said something derogatory about my mother. That’s what started it, and again, you left on your own.
@PHenry ~ don’t limit it to just the ’60’s. ‘maudlin’ has been a long staple of the movie hucksters
… after all, that insipid ‘Love Story’ came out in 1970
Gentleman. Gentleman, there’s no fighting in the war room.
And we are at war, but not with each other here.
I don’t care. Hemingway in ebonics is a dope idea.
“My nigga’ Nick Adams” is gonna’ win a Pulitzer.
Can’t we all just get along?
I just watched Nick Adam in ‘Die Monster, Die!’ …. no one would want Nick Adams to be his nigga … no one
wasn’t he Johnny Yuma in ‘The Rebel’? … at least Johnny Cash sung the theme song
I’m out. There’s no honer here. There’s people that know the truth that wouldn’t say shit if their mouths where full. Quite honestly my standards are higher than this. You won Willy. Who’s next?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAcDaC1o5nA
Go to your separate corners!
Here is some honesty, objectively, @BB you made a non related comment (questionable) and @willy objected directly(questionable).
BOTH are okay. There are no rules about threads correct???
WE come here to agree to disagree I hope at the least and to agree the best? No?
Thank you, BFH, for posting the story. And thank you all for reading it. Fascinating (and some unexpected) comments/reactions/pastiches.
Yes, joe6pak, you are correct.
Will there be a sequel? I don’t know. I wrote a sequel to one of my stories, but I don’t know about this one yet. Depends on what happens to Jack.
Willy is a fucking idiot, that can’t wait to take a shot at Brad. He’s kind of like Biden sympathizers in the sense that they will twist what Trump says in an attempt to make it appear to be a negative when nothing like that was intended. Maybe the story didn’t address his personal experiences like it did to me, and as a result he joked about it. That’s what a lot of us do, hell, that’s what I do. C’mon Willy, why start shit when there is nothing there? We have a war to fight and you’re throwing bombs at our teammates!
WELL that escalated quickly
“Hatred like acid, does more damage to the vessel, than that which it is poured.”
If the war comes between Global Socialism and Capitalism, we (the majority of those who post here) will be on the same side.
The Democrat are focused on changing yesterday, because their vision for tomorrow, SUCKS.
The story probably has an interesting twist.
Wow, the comments here morphed into a perfect match for a quote on a refrigerator magnet I purchased a couple of years ago.
A man and a woman are facing each other. Both are smiling, but each has that “I gotcha” raised eyebrows facial expression.
One of them says to the other one, “If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong”.
My opinion is the man made the statement. My wife’s opinion is the woman made the statement. We’ve been married 49+ years, somehow we keep chugging along in harmony (mostly), despite her always being wrong. However, from some unfathomable logic she believes it’s the other way round. Go figure. Well, in the words of a song by the late John Prine, In spite of ourselves we’re the big door prize.
I like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and assume they are trying to wisecrack at the subject. Some hit, some miss. It’s not the end of the world. Let BFH run the site, enjoy all the different posters. Skip the people you don’t want to read. Nobody needs to be a keyboard warrior who polices someone else’s site.
It was then that Sheriff Will Teasel pulled up and offered him a ride to the end of town. “Can’t I get something to eat here?” Jack asked.
Well, that was subtly depressing. That melancholy feeling was compounded after reading several of the comments.
Other than the cellphone, it does read like a script tailored for a twenty-ish-year-old Dustin Hoffman in the 1960s. (no offence to the author, just not my personal taste in literature)
He had said all he was going to. Then, he left the toilet seat up and walked away.
Conversation between Joe & Jill, after the election…
I found the story quite compelling. It’s a look into regret and what it does to people. I’ve experienced regret and it eats up the soul. I find release when I give up my reaction to things I regret to God and ask him to help me. It’s not always pleasant, but it heals in the end.
I didn’t know what the subject of the story was about until I thought about it later. I agree with the people who think it’s about an abortion, and as the author stated.
Do you know what that means? The story was written in a way that made us THINK. Whether you like the writing style or not (I do), it made you think. Thinking is good, remember?