The RC Car
A Short Story
The year is drawing to an end which means that we are inching closer to another STSC annual Fiction Symposium. And this year I’ve decided to kick things off by featuring an excellent story that long, looong time STSC member Brady Putzke put out earlier this year.
You can call it Minimalism, you can call it Carvercore, but what you can’t call it is anything less than outstanding. It takes a lot of craft to make a story seem so effortless and natural.
(And btw if you want to hear Brady’s takes on craft, genre, and basically everything else listen to him and Frank Kidd’s imaginatively titled The Frank and Brady Show - possibly the only non-nerdy arts and culture podcast in existence)
Enjoy.
TJB.
Raymond is sitting at the bar in Tilly’s for the usual reasons you do such things. He’s drinking a Jack and Coke. It smells smoky in there, and like beer. His feet hurt. He’s been out in the yard all day. Mowing, trimming, making the house look appealing for the sale. Jonah helped him. The boy is strong for his age. Eight, to wit.
Gary ambles in. He seems off balance but Ray isn’t sure if that’s his own head swimming or if Gary had gotten a head start at the dock. The longshoreman meanders his way to the stool next to Ray, takes a seat, raises a hand for his usual. Linus fixes him an old-fashioned. A bit of a fancy drink for a simple man. Ray thinks so. Ray thinks it probably speaks of some unknown depth to the man. Something benthic.
“Ray.”
“Gary.”
“How’s it going?”
“It’s going.”
They drink a while. They’re quiet. The bar murmurs. Hank on the jukebox.
“Me and Natalie are splitting up,” Ray says.
“I heard that.”
“Yeah?”
A little more quiet drinking. Ray’s feet hurt. He rubs at his neck and feels the callouses scratch at his sunburned skin.
Gary puffs his cheeks and lets the air pop out quick at first and then fade in a long slow pffffff.
“Yeah,” Ray says.
Gary’s eyes look tired, glassy. He doesn’t know what to say. Nobody ever does. When these things happen.
“Well…” he tries.
“Yeah?” Ray says and lifts his head a little.
“I’m sure you did the best you could.”
“Yeah.”
They share a look. A sad look. One that knows beyond.
“I think I did,” Ray says. “I think I did.”
“Yeah.”
Ray thinks a few seconds. He says:
“Who knows though, ya know? I think Nat did her best too. Sometimes things just don’t work out.”
“Yeah. True enough.”
Ray gestures back forth between them with a shaky finger, looking at Linus. Fresh drinks before they know it.
Gary tries to tug a wrinkle out of his shirt. He spots a fairly big grease stain on it and sighs, gives up.
“I told Jonah last week,” Ray says.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He inhales, sharp. Exhales, forceful. But resigned. “I think he took it pretty well.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah. Good. I told him it wasn’t because mom and dad don’t love each other anymore.”
“Yeah. ‘Course not,” Gary says. “Sometimes things just don’t work out.”
“Right.”
Ray knocks back the rest of the drink. It burns. The coke and the booze. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, sloppy-like. Screws up his face in something angry looking, all tight and narrow and then lets it relax halfway back to normal. He goes on:
“You know what? I told him that dumb cliche about how he’d get two Christmases and birthdays now. Like two sets of presents and what not.”
“Kids like Christmas.”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“What?”
Ray sighs.
“It won’t make it any better, huh?” Ray asks.
“I turned out alright. My folks split up when I wun’t much older than Jonah is. Sometimes things just don’t work out.”
“Yeah.”
Gary’s staring at his drink, swirls it a little. Sees something splash on the wood to his left, in his periphery. He looks over and sees another tear hanging precariously off Ray’s right check. It splashes next to the first one and he swears he can feel it on his hand but it probably can’t splash that far and he’s probably drunk and not seeing the world right and then Ray wipes the back of his hand across his eye and sniffs.
“Hey,” Gary says. Puts his hand on Ray’s shoulder. “Hey. It’s gonna be alright, buddy.”
Ray turns his head up at him. All welled up in the eyes.
“Yeah?”
Gary can’t bring himself to say it again.
Ray shakes his head a little. Sniffs, sighs loud. Brings himself back to the room. Out of his head.
“I had to take him to the doctor.”
“What?”
“Jonah.”
“Why?”
“He’s been wettin’ the bed.”
“At eight?”
“Yeah. Been years since he did that. Doc says it’s stress. I think I caused it.”
“Nah. It’s a phase I’m sure.”
“Yeah?”
“Kids, right?”
Ray opens his mouth to speak. Stops. Moves his mouth to the side, searches for something in his mind. It escapes him. But something else pops into its place. A frequent refrain.
“I told him we did still love each other. Nat and me. Told Jonah, I mean.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“I told him to respect his mom. That it wasn’t her fault. Or anybody’s fault. Sometimes things just don’t work out. It’s not like she messed around on me or nothin’.”
“That’s good. Yup.”
“Do you think he’ll think it’s his fault?”
Gary muses on it for a second.
“Figure not. I turned out alright.”
“Yeah. I just want him to know it’s not his fault.”
“It’ll be alright.”
“I didn’t want to be like my old man,” Ray said.
“How d’ya mean? Your folks split too?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t remember you telling me that.”
“Maybe I didn’t. Not exactly proud of it. See? Won’t my boy say that, feel that? What did I do and yet I’ve got that guilt?”
“I’m still married,” Gary said.
“And happy?”
“Who can say? I suppose not especially.”
Ray knocks on the wood so Linus will turn around, taps the rim of his glass. The barkeep shakes his head. Cut off.
Ray pushes the air in front of him, dismissive. Makes a disappointed buzzing sound with his lips.
“You know what I just thought of?” Ray turns to look Gary in the eye. Gary doesn’t want to return the gaze but he pities the man and obliges.
“What’s that?”
“When I was about Jonah’s age my old man had bought this radio controlled car for me. For Christmas. My folks hadn’t broken up yet so it was just the one Christmas. He worked these long hours, you know? Takin’ care of us. Mom and my sister and me. I don’t think he was a very happy man. But anyhow he works these long hours and mom had found this sale and so they got me this car for a steal. Dad had picked it up on a weekend in July. It was in the summer, you know, on account of the sale. He left it in the car for a few months while he went to work. He always said that was so it would be a surprise, but I think he just didn’t even have the juice left after his day to find some place to stash it in the closet. So he finally some time brings it inside. And Christmas rolls around and I get this car and I’m over the moon and I unwrap it and I’m going crazy with excitement and it doesn’t work. The batteries had corroded from the heat. All that white junk inside it when you open it up. And it was half a year old and he didn’t have the receipt and nobody could do a thing about it. It never worked.”
“They say it’s the thought that counts.”
“They say that.”
Ray tries to drink from an empty glass and half slams it down in clanging frustration when he realizes the medicine is gone.
“I hated him for that,” Ray says.
“Yeah?”
“He could have brought it inside.”
“Could have, yeah.”
“All he had to do was care about it. Think it through. Expend a little energy.”
Gary grunts.
“Sometimes things just don’t work out, right?” Ray says, uncertain.
“That’s right.”
“I never wet the bed though.”
“Yeah.”
“Sometimes things...” Ray says and trails off into nothingness.
“Yeah,” Gary says and swigs the last of his drink.
The juke switches over to some old Willie Nelson.
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You bring out the isolation, the feeling of helplessness in the face of what the two men feel is almost the inevitable. History repeating itself, mutual incomprehension, the sins of the fathers. Good story.
I really like Gary in this scene. He's trying to be a good friend and all. Ray blaming his dad...I disagree. Life is hard, man. He did his best. Man, this is a great story, though. It feels so real. Great work, Brady.