Sarah suggested posting some of my fiction to my blog. Think I might try it. This is a story I wrote about four years ago. It plays with one of my favorite themes: mundane situations suddenly becoming fantastical. Or sometimes just plain strange.
The post's title, by the way, comes from the '70s German punk group, Can. The piano intro is catchy as hell.
Under the Tarp
“Look, all I’m saying is that if you’re sure she’s cheating on you, then dump her.” Brian took a puff on his cigarette, blew smoke out the window. “You’re either the nicest guy I know, or the dumbest.”
“That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“I’m just tryin to figure out why you keep putting up with her shit.” Another puff. Another plume of smoke out the window. “The sex must be fantastic.”
Jared kept his hands on the wheel, his eyes on the interstate before them. About fifty yards ahead, there was a large diesel truck hauling a flat-bed trailer. On the trailer was a large . . . thing. Rectangular prism wrapped in tarp. A very big tarp. Jared thought, No tarps were harmed in the making of this movie, and then shook his head.
“That doesn’t explain why I still put up with your shit,” he said.
Brian thought about that a moment and then nodded his agreement. “Yeah, the sex between us is terrible.”
On their left passed a long black smudge that culminated in a great coil of rubber. The shed skin of the elusive roadsnake. The diesel was a little closer now. Loose edges of the tarp flapped and tugged at the thing it was covering. Jared only felt half attached to reality. For some reason, the faded-purple of the interstate’s pavement made him feel like he was in a story. Maybe something about rangers, hobbits, and vagabond wizards. Only for him, there was no ring to destroy, no quest to complete. It was nothing but the Dead Marshes, baby, and his version of Sam sometimes seemed more akin to Gollum, hold the Sméagol.
Jared shrugged, tapped out a rhythmless pattern on the wheel, and said, “I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
He shifted in his seat and wiggled his foot around to try to shake some of the tension in his shins. He wished he had cruise control.
“I don’t know. You know, if she’s cheating. Or how I’m supposed to find out. Just generally what in the bloody hell I’m supposed to do.”
Brian took a last drag on his cig and flicked the butt out of the car. He rolled up the window. “Well, I think this is a nice start.”
“What is?”
“Actually talking about it instead of keeping your friggin lip buttoned like you usually do. Vent. Call her names. Like, say she’s a bitch.”
“What?”
“C’mon, say it.”
Jared watched another shred of tire go past.
“Saaay it.”
“All right! She’s a bitch.”
“There. Feel better?”
“Not exactly.”
“Now why is she a bitch?”
“What?”
“You called her a bitch. Now tell me why?”
Jared sighed. “Do you have a point?”
“My point is to stop worrying about it. You are young, my friend. You are nearing the prime of your life. There’s plenty of time left. Anyway, it’s not like you were going to marry her.”
Jared didn’t answer. After a moment, Brian looked at him, stricken. “Oh God, don’t tell me you were going to marry her!”
“What?” Jared felt actual surprise. “No!”
Brian calmed a little but still looked wary. “You swear that’s true? There’s no ring hidden away in your desk drawer, is there?”
“No, Brian. I wasn’t going to marry her.”
As if he hadn’t heard him: “Because if there is, then so help me, I will jump out of this car right now!”
“I swear, marriage was never the intent.”
“All right,” Brian said. He shifted to an easier position and took his hand off the door handle. Jared had never seen it go there in the first place. He realized he wasn’t so sure that Brian wouldn’t have jumped out.
He shook his head. Best not to think about it. Ahead, the diesel was closer. The tarp continued to flap and beat. It bulged weirdly in the wind.
“It was just, you know, the average boy-girl relationship. Go to the movies, go to dinner, someplace. Go back to the apartment, fool around.”
“You guys do it?”
“Couple times,” Jared said. “But it was like that was all it’d ever amount to. A little fun, a little pleasure, a little sex. I never felt really intimate with her. I really think that we were just in the right place at the right time, and eventually we would wind down, it would stop working, and we’d say, I don’t know . . . see ya later.”
“So you’re saying there was no real emotional attachment between you.”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Pansy.”
“I thought that was coming.”
“And yet you blundered into it just the same.”
“Bite me.”
“And when you heard she was cheating,” Brian said, “you didn’t confront her because . . . .”
“Because there was no emotional attachment.”
“Right.”
“I guess I wasn’t really mad at her. Disappointed maybe, but not all that mad. So I decided to wait. See if it’s true.”
“Good plan, I guess,” Brian said, rolling down the window with one hand, pulling out a half-crumpled pack of Marlboro Lights with the other. “Don’t lay into her until you know for sure.”
“Yeah. Makes it easier for both of us.”
“Nice guy.”
“You know, I hear they finish last.”
“He who laughs last, laughs best.”
“That doesn’t quite fit.”
“The sentiment’s the same,” Brian said. He puffed a cigarette into ignition, then put pack and lighter away.
“You’re gonna kill yourself with those,” Jared said.
“Gotta die of something,” Brian said.
Ahead, the diesel was only ten yards away. The tarp was bulging severely, too much for the wind to be the cause. Like something was pushing out.
Something bony and white punched through one side of the tarp and unzipped it top to bottom. The ragged edges flapped. The top bulged more than ever and began to split. Whatever was pushing it out retracted for a moment and then slammed upward again. The bulge was slighter than before, but permanent. There was a bang of metal that Jared and Brian could hear over the wake rolling off the car.
“What the hell!” Brian said.
Jared didn’t say anything.
There was another of those impossibly loud bangs and the bulge became more pronounced. A steel bar, horribly distended, peeked through the split in the tarp. With one more bang, a groan and a wrench, the bar gave way to the monstrous force assailing it. Something big and dark erupted out and leaped clear of what could only be a cage.
The only thing Jared could think to do was slam on the brakes. The car swerved, fishtailed, and threatened to spin out, but Jared kept it in control long enough to come to a complete stop. When the car had stopped rolling, he raked his fingers across the seatbelt release, threw open the door, and jumped out onto the interstate. A minute later, Brian was beside him. His cigarette dangled from his bottom lip.
“Shit!” he said.
“What the hell—”
“Shit!” Brian said again.
Ahead, now almost a quarter mile away, the diesel began to slow down, the driver having finally noticed that something might have gone a bit wrong. Neither Jared nor Brian noticed, nor even cared, about the diesel. They were all eyes for the thing that was flying away. It was fast. Already, it was little more than a vague shape very far away. It was, however, still close enough for them to see the spirited little somersault it did, as well as the gout of flame it trumpeted into the sky, as if in celebration of its newfound freedom.
Jared shook his head. “Is that a—”
“Don’t say it,” Brian said.
“I don’t believe it.”
“Shit!” Brian said a third time.
A moment of silence. And then:
“I think it really is. It’s a—”
“Don’t say it.”
