Kelly's smelled. A crackling eulogy of oak logs wafted from a wide fireplace through the dark paneled barroom where two decades of entrenched beer and cigarette odors were holding their own against last night's fading Lemon Pledge.
Hank Bennet, a scuffed-leather flying jacket topping his faded coveralls and unhooked galoshes, smelled only the ale as he slumped over the bar, his nose inches above an Allagash. After a week of listening to Mr. Crenshaw rail at him about every little mistake, calling his boss an asshole had seemed only fair. It's not like he cared about that nowhere job.
He ordered another drink, placed a battered lime wedge in the Allagash's tall neck and dropkicked the lime with his index finger at the empty bourbon chaser. Score to date: shot glass-27, Hank-1.
At the moment, controlling the anxiety of telling Marge he'd been canned seemed more important than the risk of adding another .2 percent blood alcohol to his drive home. Not that he'd thought it through that thoroughly.
"You'll never get anywhere this way," said Kelly, the owner and sole bartender, as he replenished the bourbon and ale chaser in front of his only customer this bleak, December afternoon. Hank mumbled something that might have been clever — if said earlier and more clearly — and lifted the shot glass to his lips.
Even Hank's Beam-addled brain knew he'd stayed two drinks too long. He arrived at Kelly's around three with the idea he'd just mellow out a little before heading home. Only fair to Marge to sand the edges off the foul mood the Crenshaw incident had put him in. Especially now, when she was counting on him, the baby and Christmas dovetailing on the December calendar. At least that's what he told himself pulling into the empty parking lot, halfway between work and home. He didn't think about his past DUIs; he never did until he'd had several drinks. Then he didn't care.
Though they started falling hours ago, Hank didn't notice the snowflakes until they piled up on the windowsill. Automatically he thought, "Must be the Jolly Green Giant scratching his dandruff again." It was something his father used to say with a smirk every snowfall, prompting his mother to respond, "Now, Gerry, what's the boy to think?" To which his father always answered:
"Who cares?"
I'll drink this one slowly and wait for a break in the weather.
But the storm chose to intensify. An endless parade of six-sided white devils mocked him through the lattice windows, reminding him the balance was tipping. From this point on, the later he got, the madder the Marge. Then, too, he was out of money. Kelly said he wouldn't front him anymore, said at the rate his sense was following his money down the alcohol drain, if he didn't go now, he'd end up there all night, snowbound and sober. As he hooked up his galoshes, Hank thought those were two words that should never be used in the same sentence.
As he waded ankle-deep through the white-carpeted parking lot, the bar sign's neon reflection off the new snow taunted Hank with a reminder of the warmth he'd just left. Ahead, under a snow quilt, was his '86 Camaro, his inner sanctum, his protector; the only place he could sit in silence; the only acquaintance, besides Marge, whom he could trust not to put him down.
Hank struggled to overpower the semi-frozen door lock as a giant Massey-Ferguson plow growled slowly past him, parting the snow on Route #12 like the Red Sea, its flashing red tail lights a beacon a driver could follow safely home. About time God cut me a break.
Fitting the key in the ignition was an exercise in mind over matter and took half a dozen attempts, as Hank was currently deficient in both. When the Camaro finally coughed alive, the view through the windshield showed a scant six yards to the newly plowed road. Hank gunned the engine and slipped the car into first gear.
He could no longer see the highway, so he drove by exception: unless he saw a tree in his headlights, he was okay. In the middle of his fourth guess-what- Marge? rehearsal, he caught a glint in the corner of his rearview mirror. Shit! A cop!
Not good. He'd been stopped twice before for driving under the influence. Another violation and New Hampshire would suspend his license. Marge would have to drive him to work every day after he found a new job.
Right!
Options flowed through his lubricated mind as if they were bobbing sticks in a flooded creek. The twig of thought that stuck was prompted by a floating factoid: the Vermont border was only a few miles away. In this blizzard, the cop could never overtake him in time. Hank tightened his jaw and pressed hard on the accelerator. Sometimes a man has to take risks for the woman he loves.
Bright specks of white assaulted the Camaro between windshield wiper beats like amoebas attacking a spaceship entering an alien atmosphere. Mesmerized, Hank saw patterns — attack patterns — right out of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War." When he realized he was naming each snowflake, he shook his head violently.
The speedometer quickly found fifty. The cop was still on his tail, kissing close. Jezzus, was this cop crazy, following so near in a blizzard? Guys in uniform — think they can do anything.
"Whatsa matter, Bennet, need another toothbrush?" Hank looked up from the latrine floor, up at the Sergeant's cratered face, thinking he must have been teased a lot for that acne. More than making up for it now.
Sarge had had it in for Hank from the first day when the new recruits, still in their civvies, stood at attention outside the bus in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.
"Bennet? Oh, that's right, you corrected me. Ben-AY. Any relation to … no, I guess you couldn't be 'cause I'm 20 years in this man's army, and I never heard of anyone called Ben-AY. Must make you a queer, or a foreigner, or one of those test-tube babies. That you? Ben-AY? A phony queer baby? You'll get nowhere in this man's army with a name like that."
Basic was tough but structured. Learning all the rules was the hardest part. Hell, there were fewer rules than in Mr. Miller's geometry class and Hank had squeaked through that.
He said, "YESSIR!" when the Sarge dropped a quarter on his bunk, then ripped off the blanket
Hank worked half-an-hour to get skin-tight. He said, "YESSIR!" when Sarge made him do a hundred pushups in the rain puddle because he smiled when Mahoney asked if the Sarge was born wearing a uniform. He said, "YESSIR!" when Sarge handed him a toothbrush and told him to scrub the latrine floor after he came in last on the obstacle course. But, when Sarge laughed and pissed on the floor Hank spent all night cleaning, well, it just felt right to spit at him. He wished the rest of the platoon had been in the latrine as well as at the court martial.
Sixty! He still couldn't shake the fucking fuzz — on him like paint on a picket fence. No, that wasn't right. Like white on a … Where is that damn border sign? Hank wished someone was riding with him.
Sue liked to ride with the top down, her head half out the open window, lying on the top of the door, blond hair chasing after the wind like a Golden Retriever.
The Roxie Drive-in was every Friday night for them. Didn't matter what was playing. Not to Hank.
A convertible, a bag of popcorn, a six-pack, and this beautiful girl was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Sue's head was on his shoulder, his arm around her neck, hand down the V of her sweater, finger tips under her bra, stretching to get as far south as possible on her breast curve without shifting position.
As the movie ended, Hank's left hand went to Sue's knee and started sliding north.
"No, Hank. I told you, not till we're more serious."
"I am serious."
"If you were serious, you'd be looking for a job."
"Thinking about the Army."
"That's not a job! Letting the government move you around the country every two years, paying you squat. My Aunt Edna was married to a soldier."
"But if I was an officer …"
"Hank Bennet! You outta your mind? They ain't gonna make no high-school dropout an officer. Don't know why I'm wasting my time on you. You ain't ever going to amount to nothing."
Hank had never hit a girl before, and he didn't this time, though God knows he wanted to. He tore the sound box off its stand instead as he laid rubber all the way out of the Roxie.
Seventy! The cop was on his tail like glue, taunting him, recalculating the fine increasing with every mile on the speedometer.
He proudly wore the apron and the cap, each with the MacDonald's name and golden arches stitched on them. He was part of something.
Al, Cindy Lou, and Dave pulled up to the window in Dave's '55 Mercury, the suspension chopped, the muffler glass-packed. Cindy Lou was draped over Al's shoulder like one of those capes Camelot knights wore.
"Lookie who's here. Whatsa matter, Hankie? No time for college?"
"More like no money," said Dave. The three looked at each other, collapsing in their cleverness, dividing Hank's embarrassment equally among them the way stranded sailors share water on a desert island.
Hank tried to stay "professional," a term Mr. Wilson used repeatedly during his orientation. He kept his voice even when they asked him about the day's special; he dutifully wrote down the details of their three special orders, even the part about, "Oh, yeah, could you toast just the bottom bun?" He used the cash register's electronics to be sure he got the proper change, his smile frozen professionally in place. It was the penny tip, and "Here, buy yourself some happiness on your trip to nowhere — loser" that pushed him over the edge. The vanilla shake dripping down Al's face brought Hank's real smile back.
Eighty! The chase had become a mission, a religious quest, a desperate race for salvation. No allies, no companions, no friends. Man alone against the elements, fighting the just fight, or just fighting.
The blizzard blur faded as Hank focused on the dashboard in front of him. Eighty! What was he thinking? He looked in the rearview mirror. The cop was still there. What was he thinking?
Hank stood in the schoolyard, watching the bullies overtake a nerd cluster. One of the boys was crying, the one whose thick glasses Terry held up over his head. Big mistake, thought Hank. One tear and you're theirs forever.
He didn't know why he went over, though he often though of it in the years that followed. Eight years walking the fine line between the bullies and the nerds, not mean enough for one, not smart enough for the other. No friends, but at least he had no enemies. He worked hard at Kennedy Middle School. Classes didn't come easily to him, but he moved ahead every year. That was something.
"Terry, give him back his glasses. The kid's crying."
Terry turned. Hank never forgot the "fresh meat" look. He didn't yet understand that a bully has to re-earn his followers' respect every moment and never remembered responding to the missed punch with a kick to the redhead's groin. He did remember the ambulance siren and the principal yelling he wouldn't tolerate criminal behavior in his school. "This boy isn't going anywhere, least of all here," was what he said. In front of everybody.
Ninety! He wouldn't lose this time.
Hank got home from school and found his dad in the living room with a half-empty jug of moonshine. Never a good sign. Most nights his dad didn't get home until Hank was in bed.
"Hey, boy, where you been?"
"School."
"Hah! You can read, boy; rest's a waste, least for you."
"Mom says school's important. To get ahead in the world."
"Ahead? That where you're going, boy? Now you listen to me." His father grabbed Hank's jacket by the lapels and pulled him into his alcohol breath. "The only head you're going to is if you join the Navy. Your mom's feeding you a pail of pig slop. Used to feed me the same shit. Fact is, boy, you ain't never gonna get nowhere or amount to anything. All the schooling in the world ain't ever gonna change that."
Hank wished he could hit him, hit something, scream at him, tell him it wasn't true, anything but cry. But cry he did.
Ninety-five! Hank screamed. A deep, long, loud scream, yet shallower and shorter and softer than one would expect after a quarter-century. His mind collapsed as his foot released the accelerator pedal. He started blinking to clear the tears, afraid, at this speed, to pry his hands off the wheel.
The needle had barely begun its decline when Hank remembered. The bridge! Wasn't there a bridge out last night and he had to detour through Wingford? Suddenly he felt a jolt.
Hit something? Still moving forward. Speedometer 50. Was it safe to brake? Maybe I hit the barrier. Wouldn't I have seen that?
Another jolt! No, not a jolt, a sound — a sound from the left. Hank jerked his head left and saw a cop. Standing there! Rapping on the window. How could he be going 50? Hank looked down. No motorcycle. He rolled down the window out of habit.
"What's your hurry, buddy?" The cop smiled, standing outside the steaming Camaro, its wheels spinning in the snow-filled parking lot. "Going nowhere fast?"
###
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Comments: 11
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty just can't compete with what you have accomplished here.
The transitions between the rest of Hank's world and the police car chase down the wintry highway unfolds without a glitch.
Foreshadowed so smoothly, I had to kicked my self! Hank had never left Stella's parking lot, going nowhere fast!!!
Nice. Nice. Real Nice.
--Pat
One point- during the flashback regarding Mary- the name is so similar to Marge that I confused the two thinking they were one.
For me the first line made me automatically wonder what of Kelly's smelled. Did it smell or stink- often I think of old beer as stinking not smelling. Though it doesn't work well with the repetitive wording of Hank Bennett smelled.
Good comment about two names beginning with M-think I'll change that.
The point about Kelly's smelled is also well taken. I have to think through some options there.
General stuff first.
You've given us a strong sense of place with your opening. You've also painted Hank well throughout, revealing more and more as the story unfolds. Your ending is nearly inevitable, given what you've shared about Hank's life, but we don't see it coming. That's great. We're satisfied, but you weren't obvious.
I'm not sure how much of my picky stuff is due to the unfortunate Gather formatting. Please ignore anything that doesn't apply. Of course, feel free to ignore anything at all :-) Your work with your name has to stand as you see fit.
That said, here are a few things I noted reading from beginning to end--
As Vivian mentioned, "Kelly's smelled" could be a problem right at the start. We wonder if Kelly smelled bad and if you added the apostrophe and s by accident. Or, was Kelly doing the smelling. Or, was it a place named Kelly's that had a bad odor. Lots of options--Kelly's reeked; Hank's favorite bar smelled bad. Really bad.; Kelly's smelled as it ought to after two decades of beer and...
An easy fix, you just need to decide how you want to play it.
"crackling eulogy" sounds fabulous, but I don't know what you mean. Crackling praise? What are the logs praising? And second, "crackling" and "eulogy" are both sound words, but then they are wafting through the room, just like the odors do. Not sure if that's a good blend.
Try hyphen for dark-paneled.
Try "held" their own rather than were holding. Makes a stronger statement.
"Last night's fading Lemon Pledge" Yes, detail that's spot on.
Consider losing some of the adjectives in the first paragraph. When all nouns are modified, the impact for each is lessened. We (readers) don't know what is really important and we tend to forget or allow them to blur. Use modifiers when you want to highlight something or because it's important for us to know that about an object.
Instead of, "Hank Bennet smelled only the ale, slumped over the bar, his nose inches above an Allagash." consider Hank Bennet, slumped over the bar, smelled only the ale, his nose inches above an Allagash. The first could imply that the ale, not Hank, was slumped over the bar.
"He'd been there all afternoon, his faded coveralls and unhooked galoshes topped by a scuffed-leather flying jacket." Because of the sentence construction here, these two phrases should have more of a relation, but they are 2 unrelated phrases. A transitional word or two would help--He'd been there all afternoon, comfortable and warm in his faded coveralls, unhooked galoshes, and scuffed-leather flying jacket. Or, He'd been there all afternoon, comfortable and warm in his faded coveralls and unhooked galoshes, his scuffed-leather flying jacket topping off the ensemble.
"...placed a battered lime wedge in [on?] the tall neck..." I couldn't figure out how he dropkicked the bottle, then realized you meant the lime wedge. But if it is in the bottle, he can't flick it. On the bottle instead?
"...adding another .2 percent blood alcohol to his drive home." Great wording. Creates a strong impact and does so in a non-expected way.
Do you have a paragraph break for dialogue, "You'll never get anywhere...?" That may be a formatting issue, but I can't tell. Should be a new paragraph if it isn't.
"...bleak[,] December afternoon." Comma if both words are modifying afternoon.
"...if said earlier..." Not sure what you were getting at with earlier.
"Automatically he thought..." Is there something more specific than "automatically" that gets closer to what you mean? Out of habit he murmured, "Must be the..."
Enough for one post. I'll be back...
You know that I love the long sentence, but by the time I got to the end of this one, I forgot where we had started. "Then, too, he was out of money and Kelly said he wouldn't front him anymore, said at the rate his sense was following his money down the alcohol drain, if he didn't go now, he'd end up there all night, mentioning "snowbound" and "sober," two words, in Hank's opinion, that should never be used in the same sentence." Consider breaking this one up.
"Hank waded ankle-deep..." 1. I think hyphen is needed. 2. How did he get outside? Give us a transition. He was just looking out the window, thinking. We need something--him stumbling through the door or waving to Kelly or hiking up his pants as he steps outside--to bridge the two locations.
"...he could sit in silence[;]" I'm reading this as a semi-colon rather than a comma.
"...whom he could trust [to] not put him down." Missing word?
"As [Hank] struggled..." A name reminder would work here.
"...growled past him..." Growl is a sound but you are implying that it actually passed by him. Consider rewording to give us both sound and movement.
"...took a while, as Hank was..." Even though he's drunk, could you be specific for us? How many attempts? "took an even half-dozen attempts"
"[Hank] gunned the engine..." Try Hank rather than he, since the last subject was the Camaro.
"...drove "by exception:" Try italics instead of quote marks. Not as intrusive but still gets the point across. And I would use it for exception but not "by."
"...[fourth] "Guess what, Marge?" rehearsal. 1. Spelling of fourth. 2. Try, "...fourth guess-what-Marge? rehearsal. Quotation marks may be too intrusive here. 3. I love the guess-what-Marge? rehearsal line!
Another stopping place. I hope to be back tomorrow...
I'm on the final leg of an East Coast trip. Later next week things will get back to normal and I'll carve out some time to comment on one or more of the articles in the group.
"...after he found a new job. Right!" I think the Gather formatting got me on this one. Is he thinking, "Right! Like that's gonna happen"? Is he saying this or thinking this and what does he mean? (I'm not certain what's real with the quotation marks and the question mark.)
"...mind like bobbing sticks..." and "...like amoeba attacking..." Similes add color and punch, but be careful of too many. There are 2 fairly close in this paragraph.
Is there a paragraph break at, "Bright specks of white..."
"...Hank saw patterns--attack patterns--right out of..." Consider setting this off with em dashes instead of commas. The phrase seems to call for a stronger separation than a comma allows for. (I love the em dash.)
"Whatsa matter, Bennet?" We need an intro of some sort here. Or it needs to be set off with a visual separator (like a dashed line) so we know we've changed scenes and time. And you might have already done this. I'm sorry, I just couldn't tell. It's especially important that we can understand that this is a memory, the first of his flashbacks. (Each flashback will need to be set off in the same manner.)
"But there were less than in Mr. Miller's geometry class and Hank had squeaked through that." Is this a flashback within a flashback? Who's thinking this? The Hank of the present or military Hank? Can a nested flashback work? We've all seen them. But help us to focus on the time period and place where the action is happening. Taking us even farther back can be dicey.
"He said, YESSIR..." How did we get inside when we were out at the bus? This needs a transition--something like, Another time, Hank...
"...Hank worked half an hour..." No hyphens necessary for this one. Would be different if you'd written, "...blanket that Hank had taken a good half-hour to get skintight." Also, skintight can be written without the hyphen.
"...pushups in [a] rain puddle..." Consider a rather than the unless you're referring to a specific puddle or one you've already mentioned.
"...like paint on a picket fence." Another simile. And I'm not saying they're bad, just that they're noticeable, especially in so short a piece. You might want to do a search for "like"--I think there was another instance toward the beginning.
"...fingertips under her bra..." 1. Fingertips can be a single word, though you might have made it 2 for the emphasis--I kinda like emphasizing the word "tips." 2. Under her bra made me think he was reaching up from underneath the entire bra, that is, where the underwire would be. Consider "inside her bra" for a picture to match what you have Hank actually doing (going from the top down).
"He tore the sound box off its stand[,] instead, as he laid rubber all the way out of the Roxie." Don't think there's anything wrong with this as written, but I keep wanting to change the punctuation. Consider a second comma. Or, rearrange to, "Instead, he tore the sound box off its stand as he laid rubber all the way out of the Roxie."
"...on his tail [like] glue..."
"...recalculating the fine increasing with..." How about, "recalculating the fine that increased..." I don't usually recommend adding phrases with "that" in them, but it would help for clarity in this case.
"...over Al's shoulder [like] one of those capes Camelot knights wore." Love the picture and the wording of this. If you drop any of the similes, keep this one!
Great buildup for the vanilla shake in the face. Well-paced with solid detail as Hank remained professional.
"The chase had become a mission, a religious quest, a desperate race for salvation." Nice rhythm and good explanation of his motivation.
[Rearview] mirror can be written as one word.
"...overtake a nerd cluster. One of the boys..." Couldn't tell right off if "one of the boys" is from the nerd group or the bully group.
"...kick to the redhead's groin." Redhead can be written as one word.
"...grabbed Hank's shirt by the lapel..." Okay, this one's really picky (like the rest weren't, I know :-) ). Lapel seemed an odd word choice--maybe too formal? "Collar" I'd understand. Maybe something like, "twisted Hank's faded crew-neck and pulled..." Lapel just seems more appropriate for a coat or jacket, though shirts do have lapels, too.
"What's your hurry, buddy?" smiled the cop... The cop can smile, but he can't smile words. Something like, "What's your hurry, buddy?" The cop's grin pulled his mouth into a Jack-o-lantern's grimace. (Bad, I know. Sorry.)
"...standing outside the steaming Camaro, wheels spinning..." This wording implies that the cop has wheels spinning, rather the the Camaro.
"Going nowhere fast" is a great ending line. Just sums up the tale very well.
I get the ending, except for the two jolts/bumps. If he's just spinning his wheels, what were the jolts he felt? I got a bit confused with that.
Otherwise, a strong payoff. A complete story that satisfies, as I mentioned yesterday, with the ending. And a great stab at writing fiction. You obviously understand the elements needed to lead the reader into the story and deliver a punch at the end. Nice work.
I'll digest this in a few days when I get back and then ask you if I have any questions for clarification. Meanwhile I'm off to play with some small boys where I'm trying to establish enough street cred to where I can pick which Power Ranger I want to be.
Feel free to ask anything you need to. I'll probably keep my notes for at least a few days.