Stuck In the Driveway Part II

It is "Fiction Friday" here at Writing for Fun. Tonight we continue our story from last week. Enjoy this week's installment.

Stuck In the Driveway Part II

A yellow Pontiac Sunfire pulls into the parking lot of the “Brogan's Green Thumb.” A dark haired woman steps out of the car wearing jeans that are a half size too small and a too tight “Brogan's Green Thumb” shirt. Bev's pony tail flips up as she looks down to extinguish her cigarette. As she is twisting her foot to grind the cigarette butt into the ground, she starts coughing as only a smoker can in the morning. In her attempt to get her cough under control, she did not see the black sedan exiting at far end of the parking lot. Bev spits out the phlegm that she has coughed up. She quickly looks around to see if any one has seen her less than elegant act, and no one is around. The dull pain of her headache was a constant reminder of the beverages she consumed last night.

“What am I doing here on a Sunday at 8 a.m.?” Bev asked herslef. Last night at dinner, she had sensed that something was wrong with Stan. Her husband, Tom, and she got together with Stan and Mary Ann every Saturday night for the last 18 years. Ever since Stan and Mary Ann got married. Last night Stan seemed very preoccupied, and Bev knew that when he was preoccupied that nine times out of ten it had to do with work.

So, Bev took it upon herself, as she always felt she had to, to try and take care of him. She knew he would pretend to be mad at her; but, in the end he would thank Bev for her help, as he always did. Bev went to put her key in the door and realized that it was already unlocked. Briefly, she thought that she should call the police before going inside, but that thought was fleeting. Bev wasn't one to wait for help.

She gasped as she looked around the office. Manilla folders were strewn all over the floor, the papers that had been in them were scattered everywhere. Bev noticed that a few had gotten stuck in the Fica tree that was laying on its side. Most of the dirt that had been in the pot was now staining the carpet. Oh how she hated that tree.

Bev turned around to go outside and call the police from her cell phone when a man in a dark suit stepped into the office. Her scream was stifled as everything around her went black.

To be continued...Stuck in the Driveway Part III


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Rainy Days

    I was doing some landscaping yesterday. There is nothing quite like an afternoon of landscaping/gardening to make the body hurt. And it's that good hurt that lets you know you treated your body to a good workout.
About halfway through the work, it started to rain. I had known that there was chance of rain of all day – thunderstorms actually – but I didn't care. I wanted to get this project done; so, I kept working. As I was carrying sod from the back yard to the front yard, I stared thinking about my childhood and how I spent days just like this one summer over twenty years ago.
    We loved it when it rained heavily. At least, that was, during late spring and throughout the summer. Those days we would play in the rain during the storm and the following day.
     While the rain was coming down, we would run up and the down the neighborhood from my house to Andy's house – a distance of about five houses. We didn't use the street though. That was far too conventional. We would swim like dolphins in the open ocean. Instead of the open ocean, we had ditches that filled to the top with rain water.
    The yards were set-up like this – The grass ran from the front of the house to the street. About three feet from the street, the yard started to slope downward at roughly 25 degrees. Then, a foot before the grass met the street, the yard rose sharply to meet the street. The street sat a foot and a half about the ditch. This created the perfect channel for water to build-up during heavy storms. This is when we would run from Andy's yard down to mine. It was dive, stand-up, dive, stand-up until we it made to my house. Then we would reverse direction.
     The best was the next day, after the rain had stopped. We would head down to the creek (pronounced crick where I'm from). The creek was fed, in part, by the ditches in which we were swimming the day before. The creek, on a normal day, ranged from six inches to four feet deep depending on the spot. After a heavy rain, it was no less than a foot to a foot and half deep. We would get into inflatable vinyl two person boats. That's when would cruise down the creek letting it take us at whatever speed the creek wanted. We didn't go far. The total trip was about a mile; but, it was an experience I will never forget.
     These are the days I love to remember.