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I. Pudding.

Two years ago I was listening to the radio. They were having this contest sponsored by some pudding company. It was almost Fathers Day and the sun shown down on my ‘85 Topaz sending the glare right over my eyes. The air was hot, muggy so thick that when you stepped out of your apartment a wall of sweat hit you like a tsunami. I drove my car, since sold for $600 for food and rent, on the uneven road letting other cars pass me.

The radio was were having this contest. They wanted you to write a poem about your dad, the kind that make him sound like the greatest guy in the world. To who ever won, a lifetime supply of pudding was rewarded.

When I got home later that night, I hunched over my table with a pen and paper and thought. What would make me win this contest? My résumé was pushed to the side, hidden under the thick phone book with the yellow pages torn out and lying at odd angles around my chair. Grandma’s brand cookie crumbs waited patiently to be cleaned from around a half empty glass of milk which must have curdled by now, you can tell by that faint smell. And I thought.

The light in my apartment was dim, the sun light fading away as it sank into the flat beyond letting night creep in like a stalker who comes every evening, and still he surprises you every time. The shades were down over the window and what little light did shine through caught the dust which floated lazily through the air, moving only when I inhaled. And the only sound, other than the clicking of my teeth against the pen, was the hum of traffic and the occasional squeal of tires as they forgot to hold onto the black top road. And I thought.

I thought, simplicity will make it better. That’s the trick, simplicity is the key. Innocence and simplicity. Radio stations and pudding companies, they don’t care about literary merit, which was good because literary merit was a trait which I lacked very much. I let sentences spring into my mind and listened to them with my inner ear. I threw sentences away, and still the only thing that moved was the pen clicking against my teeth, and my eyes twitching microscopically.

My wall held no clock, the counter no microwave; my wrist was even bare of a watch. Nothing was in my world to tell the time. The light from the outside went dark and I did not flinch. The light from the lamppost fluttered on nervously, and I did not blink. For me time had no meaning, I just knew I needed the pudding.

And then, I penned my first line. It came to me just like every other line, it just sprang into my head, and the clicking pen stopped, lowered, and began to scratch words onto the paper. Simplicity. Innocence. I penned it onto pasty white page.

I smiled. I had the pudding in my hands already. I knew that this was it, this was the winning piece. So simple, there was no way to beat it. But I needed another line, something special about a dad that would ring true to a radio DJ or a pudding company.

I put my pen back onto my paper and scratched another line and another. Something special, lacking elegance, lacking rhyme or meter. This would be it! This would be the one, the wining poem, I could tell. And then I reached the end. I signed my name, folded it up with a return address and stuck it in an envelope.

My poem, my perfect poem was in my hand and I stood up and slipped on my shoes. I was going out, after all, Fathers Day was only a few days away and I had no time to lose. I walked down my apartment hall full of cracks in the ceiling where the rain snuck through the roof to turn the sheet rock brown and make the paint swell and chip off. I walked to the end of the hall and opened the door to the cement stairway, the only cold room in the building, even at whatever time it was.

Outside, the traffic on the freeway was black, red and white. Only the darkness and the lights I could see as I hurried my step on the still warm sidewalk, seams springing dandelions. The post office was three miles away, strait down the road, and this was important. I needed to win. I needed something concrete in my life, something steady, dependable. I had once had a girlfriend, but that didn’t work out. I needed something different, something real, tangible and this was it.

The weatherman, the week before he didn’t say that it would be this hot this week. The week before he said that we were expecting clouds and cold and showers, but the heat came on unexpected, and with force. It was a living thing which moved around us, slowing our steps. If you were careful enough you could see it wander around the city, hiding in the sidewalks to fly away in ripples through the air. The heat made it hard to breath when it caught in your throat and made it hard to sleep when it hid in your bed. The weatherman said the heat shouldn’t last long, but he didn’t know any better than I did.

I reached the post office and walked to a blue mail box. I looked at my poem. Let me win, I said in my head. Let me win, I need this, I need to win, let me win. I closed my eyes and reached out my arm and felt the poem slide into the slot. I held it there. It stood suspended halfway between holding on and falling in, and then I let it go, briskly turned and walked away.

I got a phone call a few weeks later. I had won.

Now, the first thing anybody notices when they enter my apartment is the boxes full of pudding. And my father died years ago.

II. Phone Call. [two years after]

The light is that dim mood lighting, the kind with wisps of cigarette smoke snaking around the ceiling highlighted by the sunlight pushing through the blinds. I sit at the bar, my elbows resting on the counter and a beer gently held by two fingers as I stare into nothing in particular. This bar is mine simply because it is the only bar in town that refrains from playing heavy metal or country western music. Something about this place lets me droop my eye lids as I let my mind wander from thought to thought.

The only sound comes from my cigarette when I breath through it, sucking the air through the smoldering cherry and down my throat into my lugs. When I blink, the sound carries like the feet of a fly that walks across the counter top. That’s why I come early, to be alone as I try to convince myself that I am not morning, I am celebrating.

When I hear footsteps of another human being, I shift my eyes to see who has invaded my bar. Her long legs and short black hair approach with hands in pockets. She wears a black sweatshirt through this heat but she doesn’t seem to mind. By the way she moves you can tell that she’s from out of town. She sits and calls out to the bartender, and I close my eyes as the sound of her voice echoes in my head like a mallet.

“You look tired,” she says after a moment. I glance at her and try to smile but it comes off as more of a grimace or a sneer.

“You’re in here early,” I say in a voice that cracks from lack of use, trying to keep the mood hospitable, trying to keep my problems in my head where they belong. I take a swig of beer and a drag from my cigarette. I savor the smoke, hold it in my lungs letting the nicotine swell in my blood and send it quickly to my brain.

She smiles. “So are you,” she points out as the bar tender walks up with a bottle and a lime. She takes it from him, pushes the lime down the neck of the bottle. She brings her nose over her beer and draws it in. “I needed this more and more this past week,” she says, “I’m in town visiting family and they don’t drink at all. They wouldn’t give me a moments rest so I ducked out a day early. I’m ready to go back home.”

“Yeah,” I nod trying to act interested. I laugh under my breath and take another glance at her. I could feel the red in my eyes and I could taste the smell of beer and cigarettes on my breath and teeth and I knew that she didn’t really want to talk to a guy like me. Maybe she didn’t know it yet, but if I stayed, she would soon find out. It was time to go. I stood up and pulled out some money, raised it in my hand so the bartender could see it and set it on the counter.

“So, your leaving already?” she says. She looks down and smiles. “I’m sorry to have scared you off like that.”

I looked back at her. “It’s not you,” I say, “I, just need some air.” I walk to the door. My hand on the door knob, I look back and there she is almost sullen as she blinks at me and give half an effort at a smile. I smile, breath and turn back to the door, and walk out into the blinding sunlight.

As I walk, cars drive by all in a hurry to get somewhere, to a job or appointment, to a child’s soccer game or to the beach, and here I am with nowhere to go. My shoes patter against the sidewalk with flat slaps for every step I take. My apartment is a mile from here, uphill with the promise of some needed loneliness and whiskey drawing me closer.

The walk feels long, all the while with the sun at my back pushing me forward. Over the cracked sidewalk and across busy streets swarming with traffic and pedestrians. Under the overpass where sat the bums and the rats hiding in the shade. Past the rock wall with the ivy, past the marsh with the crocodiles who never show their faces. In through the back door, up the stairwell and to my lonely apartment who always waited patiently for my arrival like puppy waiting for his bone. Through the door I hear the phone ring.

I step in and this is my apartment. You walk in and all you see is an ocean of boxes. Boxes are used for tables, for chairs, for footstools all contain a million flavors of pudding. Tapioca love seat. Chocolate bedspring. And the phone rings on the pistachio end table.

I maneuver around the boxes and shuffle towards the ringing phone, not eager to hear who’s on the calling end. My landlord’s been trying to dick me out of more money and collection agent’s swear that I opened a credit card years ago that I never paid off. But I have to answer, who knows, I may have impressed somebody at my last audition and they just may be looking for a callback. I pick up the phone and slowly bring it to my ear.

“Hello,” I said carefully, both hands on the receiver incase extra speed is required to hang the damn thing up.

“Troy?”

“Yes,” I say taking cool step a back.

“Troy, its me, Johnny.”

I smile. “Hello big brother,” I say removing one hand from the receiver as I sit down on a box. “Haven’t heard from you in forever,” I say, “Almost thought that you forgot about me.”

“Troy,” Johnny says, his voice is hollow with a hint of sandpaper, “Can you come home?”

I let out a short laugh. “What? Why?”

“Please,” his voice begins to shake, “Please come home. I’m a real fucking mess man.”

I paused. I looked around the room. “I don’t know,” I say with hesitation. “I might have this gig coming up, a commercial or something and I really need the dough.”

“I need you, Troy,” Johnny says.

“Why?”

He pauses. “Um,” he says, “I can’t talk about it over the phone. I just need some help right now… And mom died.” I can hear his breath quicken a little and picture the tears in his eyes.

“What,” I say, “Holy shit.”

“Come home Troy, please.”

I bite my lip. “Yeah,” I say, “Ok.”

“Ok.”

“Ok. I just don’t have the money for a plane ticket so it may take me a while, but I’ll get up there.”

Johnny let out a breath. “Thank you. I need to get going. I’ll see you soon.”

“Yeah, bye.”

I hang up the phone and cover my face with my hands. I exhale and close my eyes. Florida to Washington State. How far is that, three thousand miles? And shit, I don’t have a car. Shit. Shit. Shit! I need to pack. I need cloths and beer and… I need pudding. I need lots of pudding.

III. Hitchhiking.

My backpack stuffed full of essentials, I stand next to the onramp, my arm stretched straight and my thumb high in the air. In the south people will pick you up faster than they will in the north. It’s a fact. I don’t know why, maybe because people in the south tend to have little to lose, or they all carry a gun. Texas, Mississippi, everywhere you go except Florida. People in Florida are old or turists and neither tend to give a kid such as myself a helping hand. And tonight, the cars drive past, each one as equally cold as the last. The drivers avoid my eyes deliberately, after all it’s late and making contact could be dangerous with one such as myself.

I sit down and reach in my backpack to pull out a pudding, tapioca. The cars continued to cough their exhaust at me greatly enhancing my pudding eating experience. I scoop up each bite with my finger and I curse myself for forgetting utensils.

The sun sinks in the sky, growing tired and weak as it continues its late afternoon commute it the other side of the world. As it nears the horizon, the surrounding clouds thrown sparsely about the sky like speckles of paint flung from a brush, began to change colors. My thumb in the air, the white changes to yellow and the yellow slips away and changes to orange. My thumb in the air, the orange to red and red to purple until the sun is just an idea, no longer showing its face and all the sky slowly starts sinking to black. The cars turn on their headlights and still, I hold my thumb high in the air praying for a midnight savior.

And then the car pulls to the side and rolls down the window. I jump to my feet and hurry to the window trying not to seem over anxious. A woman’s voice reaches out to me and asks, “Where are you heading?”

“West,” I say. “Just as far as you’re going. North works two, but west is better.”

The woman’s silhouette bits her lip and her eyes look at me. “I’m going to Dallas, I need to get back there by tomorrow night, how does that sound?”

I smile. “Dallas would be perfect.”

“Hop in,” she says, her words laced with a golden lining.

I open the door, throw my bag in the back seat and sit down. We drive in silence at first, her steeling glances at me when she can and me pretending like I didn’t notice.

“It’s you,” she says suddenly, “Isn’t it?

“What?” I ask.

“You snubbed me at the bar,” she laughs.

I look at her not sure whether I should grimace or smile. “Holy shit! That was you?”

“Yes,” she says, “That was me. Left all on my lonesome with the Burt the Bartender.”

I laugh. “Burt? His names Burt?”

“Yup,” she says, “Burt.”

“I’ve been going there for two and a half years and I never knew his name was Burt.”

“Burt the Bartender.”

“Burt the Bartender,” I nod with a smile.

She looks at me for a moment. “I was hoping this was how you were,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“You know,” she smiles, “You were so serious at the bar, so focused and you basically left without a word, but you looked back at me before you left and I knew you would have sat with me if something wasn’t on your mind.”

“Maybe,” my smile turned sheepish, “I might have, I don’t know. I don’t really talk to people I don’t know.” I laugh, “I don’t really know many people.”

“I’m not surprised,” she says, “What was on your mind, anyway, if you don’t mind me asking?”

I force a smile and look at my lap. “I was celebrating.”

She laughs. “Celebrating!” she says, “Ok, you need to get your story straight.”

“No,” I say, “I just finished filming a scene in some movie and I had nothing left to do, it was my first job in months and it was all over. My mom used to tell me to celebrate after something bad happened. I don’t know why, she was kind of crazy but it’s a habit that’s sort of stuck. So instead of sulking, I celebrated.”

“Hm,” she says. We drive and the car goes silent for a moment. Driving down in the south, you realize how flat the world really could be. Miles upon miles fill your eyes and create the illusion of the furthest rock, tree or car being close enough to touch with your fingertips.

“My name is Carrie by the way,” she says.

“Really,” I say but it comes out too sarcastic. I try to save myself, “I like that name,” I say, “Stephen King, right. I’m sorry, you probably hear that all the time, it’s a pretty name is what I’m trying…” I pause a second. “Troy,” I say, “My name is Troy.”

She laughs at my befuddled response with a single, quick laugh. She keeps her eyes on the road but holds a smile beneath them as she drives. “So you’re an actor?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I say, “I try.”

“Have you done anything I would know of?”

I smile, “Maybe. You remember that movie ‘Summer in Egypt’? It was sort of an Indiana Jones type movie, but it didn’t do that great in theatres.”

She looks at me, reaches up and turns on the cab light. “Holy shit!” She cries, “Holy shit, it is you. You were that sidekick guy, right! Holy shit, you were, weren’t you.”

I laugh, “Yes, I was the sidekick to whatever that dip shits name was.”

“Wow,” she says, her mouth a smile and her eyes steeling another glance at me. “Wow, that is cool.”

I nod. Through the windows and the dark you can still glimpse the reflection of the stars on the ponds before they turn to swamp and as we drive the swamp turns into marsh and soon the marsh will turn into desert fro miles and miles and miles. I lay against my seat and look up at the night sky which shines down at my eyes with brilliance like a fresh cut diamond radiating light.

We drive on without further conversation, both of us gazing out the window at the night. The lush trees spread across the distance in dark pastel black and blue which hide the moon, only it’s edges exposed teasing our eyes before it reveals itself. And slowly everything turns to black and I sleep with the hum of the tires as my lullaby.

IV. Diner

When I wake, all is silent. My eyes open sticky and my body does not stir. I blink trying to bring my world into focus, but my eyes refuse leaving everything blurry. Outside the car the sun is shining in at an angle and the wind blows with a shallow hum. In the car, I am alone. I raise the seat and look about, blinking constantly as my eyes slowly clear.

The car is parked outside of a cozy diner named “Diner”. I open the car door and take a step outside. The air feels dry, not like sandpaper, but enough to know that we had traveled a ways. Through the windows I could see Carrie, the soul customer, with her head using her arm as a pillow on the table top.

I walked in. Through the doors, the long lights blinked occasionally, giving off a yellow hued glow that floated lazy through the air. The elevator music was played soft so you could hear the cook, who was also the waiter, cough and scratch his head with the edge of his spatula. I sit next to Carrie and she lays still, talking groggily underneath her breath as her eyes flutter but never close. Behind us, the cook peaks around the corner and, spotting me, waddles over spatula still in hand.

“Hi,” I say quietly once he has approached. “Can I get a menu.”

He smiles at me. “Anything you want, I can make it,” he says, his large chest held strong with a fragile looking sense of pride.

“Alright,” I say. He stands there and watches me think, a smile on his face and his hands resting on his sides. “I would really like a menu,” I say again.

“Comon man, anything you want. I got time.”

“I know,” I say, “But I don’t know what I want. I need a menu to help me decide.”

“What would your mother make, man?” he asks. “You want pancakes, I got pancakes. You want shrimp, I got shrimp. You mom make good French toaste? I make it better, no offence. Anything, man.”

I look at him blank and his smile twitches, rethinking its position, but it holds fast. “Thank you,” I say. “Anything I want.” I shake my head. “Any fucking thing I want.” And I can’t help myself; I cannot hold it back, I just yell without any control, “My mom’s fucking dead! She’s Dead! She’s fucking dead!” His smile stays but no longer filled with pride, rather switched with confusion. “I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I’m real fucking sorry. You didn’t, I don’t know— I just— Two eggs please, I don’t care how.” I can feel my eyes well and my nose beginning to run. “Not sunny side up though,” I say, “Can they be over easy with bacon? Thanks. I’m really sorry.”

“I’m sorry too man,” he says genuinely concerned. “I know how it can be. I’ll go get you those eggs.” He turns and walks back to the kitchen.

“Thank you,” I call back after him.

I turn back to Carrie who is slowly lifting her head from the table, a line of spit hanging from her mouth and her hair matted to one side. “What the hell was that about?” she asks, here eye’s half closed.

“Good morning beautiful,” I say.

“Yeah,” she rubs her eyes, “why were you yelling at that guy?” She yawns, “I thought he was nice.”

I smile and look down at the table as I wipe away my eyes. “I don’t really want to talk about it. You hungry?”

“I ate,” she says. “And if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine but the drive is probably going to seem a lot longer if you don’t. And,” she adds as an afterthought, “I am the most receptive just after I’ve woken up.”

We talk but I dodge the subject and when we leave, I leave the cook a ten dollar tip.

V. What Families Do

The car hums along the road following the bleak blue sky up to the point where the road turns to a ripple. The sun shines in on my eyes and no matter the angle I sit, I cannot block it out. So I squint as the road turns and the sun still burns the corner of my eyes.

“Why did you come down to florida?” I ask Carrie as I lean my seat back.

“I came because my mom died,” she says, her eyes fixed on the road. “I had found out a week or so before and I came down for the funeral.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. I scratch my forehead and look over at Carrie. “My mom died too,” I say. I nod. “Yeah, I just found out yesterday that my mom died. That’s why I’m going up to Seattle. My brother lives there, he called me and asked me to come. He’s not taking it too well I guess. Anyway, that’s why I’m goin’ up there.”

“Wow,” she says. “At least we got something in common, right?”

“What?”

“Both our mom’s are dead,” she says, “And neither of us get that shook up.”

“Yeah,” I say after a moment. “I guess your right. I exploded on that guy at the restaurant though. That poor bastard just stood there looking stupid while I cussed him out for mentioning my mom. I’m such an asshole.”

Carrie smiles and glances over. “You are kind of an asshole,” she say. “I mean, you can be. But you’re a nice guy too.”

I laugh. “No,” I say, “I’m pretty much just an asshole.”

“You’re going to visit your brother, though. That’s something.” She smiles genuine and when she looks at me this time, her eyes go soft. “You must really love your brother, don’t you?”

I close my eyes. “No,” I say. “I don’t know. I’ve hated him so long, I don’t know what I think of him now.”

“Then why travel this far,” she asks, “With no car or anything?”

“Because,” I say, “He’s my brother. That’s what families do.”

“I guess.” She looks at me and back at the road. We drive quiet and I can’t help but think. This is a long way to go. A very long way.

“Last time I traveled,” I say, my voice gone soft with a tone of remembering, “I left my family day’s after my dad died. My mom cried and my brother just sat by himself and got real mad whenever I tried to talk to him. I didn’t know what to do, you know? And I didn’t want to see his body, I didn’t want the closier or any of that. I wanted him to hang around with me where ever I went, me in his shadow or whatever. I don’t know why I came to Florida.” I laugh. “Who goes to Florida to act?” Carrie looks at me and smiles, but she keeps her lips closed. “My dad was the one who held me onto my family, you know? He didn’t understand me at all, but he was the one I was always trying to…” I pause. “I still miss him. But I guess that’s life, right?”

The car stays silent and I can feel the in my fingers and arms and stomach the electricity of opening up to somebody. I shiver, rest my arms and head on the window and stare out into the far off desert. We drive like this for miles, the radio filled with spits of static that rise up with the ripples of heat escaping from the road.

Looking out the window, I hear Carrie speak, I hear the soft tone of her voice, but I do not connect the words. I close my eyes and let my forehead rest against the window with only a thin layer of hair which hangs from my head to act as buffer. Carrie's soft tone fills the air again but with me off somewhere else the hum of the tires drown the words out. I turn my head and open my eyes and look at her.

She looks at me, glances down at my hands before looking back to the road. “Do your hands always do that?” she asks.

I look down at my hands resting on my lap. My fingers quiver with spits and spasms, not hard like an earthquake, soft tremors that you would hardly notice if you had just glanced down at them. I raised up a hand, opened it and closed it deliberately. I make a fist and let it relax. My fingers mellow for a moment, the tremors hiding away like a rabbit to a bush, but then they jump back just as quick to start their vibrations.

“How often do your hands do that?” Carrie asks me again.

I look over at her. “I don’t think they’ve ever done that,” I say, “not that I’ve noticed anyway.”

Carrie looks at me, worry is in her eyes as her eyebrows arch back. “What are you going to do once you get to Dallas?” she asks me.

“I don’t know,” I say, “Hitch another ride I guess. What else am I going to do?”

She bites her lip for a moment and looks back over at me mulling something over in her brain. “I have a couch, you know,” she says. “And some blankets and a pillow and a meal. You can stay the night at my place tonight if you want. Get some sleep before you head out, you know.”

I smile. “Really?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says, “Sure, why not. You’ll have to leave in the morning when I leave for work, but it’ll give you some time to get you bearings, you know, before your next three thousand miles.”

“Ok,” I say, “Yeah, sure. That,” I smile again, “That’d be nice.”

Carrie watches the road, and I look at her face as the corners of her lips turn up, like she did something right. The light shining through the car onto her face as it is now, she looks pretty. Beautiful the way a picture of a silhouette against the sun is beautiful. And for a moment, every thing seems to be going right, maybe even perfect. But, when I rest my head back against the window, I can’t help but notice the tremors from my hands as, silently, they shake.