shotgun start

the car started.

this is how it started:

the windows were already down and the seats had been dampened by the raindrops which had fallen during the previous night. it was green on the outside and grey on the inside and in this way it was just like the garbage can ruth passed every time she walked to his house--down the street. it was littered inside, too. just enough. when ruth turned the key the engine stirred abruptly. the tires had enough air.

they rolled.

when he got into the car, he brushed an empty package of licorice off of the car's passenger seat. she noticed it fall and briefly remembered blowing bubbles into milk. the seat was damp.

"did you watch the news last night?"

"yeah."

"didn't your grandpa die in the war?"

"no, no. Not, well--my mom's dad died earlier I think--like before I was born. and my dad's dad died, oh--ten twelve years ago. in the war though, he got hurt real--"

"turn up here."

"he was a paratrooper and he almost died in an attack or something. wounded real bad."

"i bet it was some crazy covert ops mission--top secret shit."

"who knows. but yeah, he only died way after the war. i went to the funeral--I think. could'ya roll that window up?"

"shoulda gone left there."

"where--"

"at that last turn--there, back by that tree. you missed it."

"well, what the hell am I--"

"just--"

"okay, I'm going back."

in the mirror, she could only see a fraction of the tree over his boxes, piled in the back seat.

"you guys could put tons of lights on that and it would be like a giant christmas tree."

for ruth vilim, the summer had always been crayfish and popsicles and muddy bicycles and tictactoe on mosquito bites. as time passed it had become bottle cap openers and concrete and second degree bravery. and sometimes when she walked alone she could see her future as a sort of tattered grade school search-and-find book. blue. red. yellow.

when they pulled into the driveway the sun was still up but it was hidden behind the house. and as they went to open the back doors of the car, ruth looked down the old road and--in a wide, grassy field--pretended that she could see bulges under a vast gym class parachute: younger versions of her friends indistinguishable, scattered and lost.