Truck Maintenance

Flash Fiction by Stefan Kiesbye

It was his slurping that convinced her she needed to act. Once more he guided the spoon to his mouth and sucked in the hot brown liquid. Kurt’s face was so earnest, so determined; he loved everything about his life. He loved his work, he loved her and what he’d dropped inside her belly. His figure was still boyish, except for the arms. His arms looked alive with movement. Snakes curling under his skin. A piece of onion had attached itself to his lip.

She wasn’t the impulsive kind. She looked at the fingers of his left hand resting on the table and had no strong opinion on them. They were fingers, a bit short perhaps. The light outside the window had trouble keeping up; the kitchen nook grew darker. She couldn’t lift her head again to face him. He’d know what she was thinking.

Kurt had bought the house; he was good with money and proud of being good. His truck was their only vehicle. While he was watching the news in the living room, she entered the garage with a half-empty garbage bag in hand. If he had seen her, he would have called it wasteful. No matter. She knew what to do and how to do it, but once she’d closed the door behind her, the lines between her mind and her hands and feet no longer worked. She thought she’d gone blind. Each new step felt unexpected and painful. She dropped the bag.

The garage was well-lit and well-insulated; Kurt had seen to that. He was thorough and methodical, always singing while at work in the house. You could count on him to put everything in its place. One wall was taken up by his large tool chest and cabinet. He’d spent more money on his garage than on kitchen cabinets. She opened a drawer, found what she needed. Getting down on the floor was harder now than only a few weeks earlier. The weight inside her shifted, needed to be balanced. A flashlight in her teeth showed her where to begin. She breathed as though she were running for her life, couldn’t get the rattling in her chest under control, but in ten minutes she was done. She’d been around cars her whole life; her dad had taught her. She’d been an only child.

After closing the drawer of the tool chest, she took in the sight of the truck, its massive hood and chromed grille. Their house stood half a mile outside of town and he didn’t want her to walk anymore. The roads were icy; she might fall. Kurt had sold her car in the summer. He didn’t want her to miscarry, he’d said. Her Pontiac couldn’t handle the potholes.

She lay in bed, her thoughts mingling with dreams, building their own world where everything that appeared at the periphery made sense. Here she made great discoveries. In this space, she remembered that a friend had asked her to take care of her plants and her birds, and she’d forgotten. For three full weeks she hadn’t even thought of them. The birds were still alive but they had lost their color. Their green feathers had turned to gray and white, and their eyes were black, and they were screeching. All the plants were dried and shriveled, and how would she ever face her friend, who she could hear at the door now, keys jangling.

She was up before midnight. There was no moon; she meant to smell smoke. She had already forgotten about the plants and bird. Her toes found the quilted slippers. The weight in her belly awoke, punched. Kurt was snoring like an air mattress losing its pressure. He’d never been harsh to her. They had waited a couple of years after the wedding before trying to have a child. He’d built a crib and painted the nursery blue; he was that certain. All the men in his family had boys only. If she gave birth to a girl, it couldn’t be his. He was joking. She wasn’t sure he was joking.

The cold of the downstairs soaked her nightgown. The thermostat was set to fifty-five degrees. They weren’t rich, he said, they couldn’t waste any money. He never went to Sparcky’s with his colleagues after work. He drank a shot of brandy at home and chased it with three cans of beer. He cut his hair and toenails while watching TV. By nine he fell asleep in his armchair. Around ten he woke up long enough to take on the narrow steps to their bedroom. He acted like a much older man, his movements slow and deliberate. How had they met? She couldn’t remember now. In Severe, you just knew everyone, whether you wanted to or not. You had limited choices, so you’d better be quick. He said he always knew she was the one. Most days he wore a baseball cap.

She switched on the light in the garage only after she’d closed the door to the hallway behind her. Static in her ears made the quiet dense. The gray truck rested in front of her, colossal. She had no means to undo the harm she’d caused. Her previous conviction felt absurd. Her fingers tingled, trembled. She pressed them against her hips to quieten them.

“You’re sweaty,” he said. She had not heard him open the door. He wrapped his arms around her, resting his hands over her belly, gently feeling for movement. “How is he?”

She nodded her head, her throat producing a sound he could interpret as reassuring. Then, “I am not possessed.” She hadn’t known she would say this.

“You’re pregnant,” he said in response, as though those two things were related. “What are you doing here? Hungry?” His nose tickled her neck. He spoke the words against her skin.

She nodded. “Chocolate, string cheese, rice pudding with cinnamon. I thought about driving.”

He laughed.

She said, “Let’s go back to bed.”

“But you’re hungry. I’ll go,” he said.

“You have work tomorrow. I know how to drive a truck, silly.”

All the while he held on to her belly, and she could feel the baby kick against his hands.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. A few minutes later he was back with jacket and boots. “I love you.” He opened the garage door and got into the truck.

She didn’t lower the door right away. She looked at the concrete floor for traces of her work and took care of them. She married herself to the cold.

She waited the time he needed to get to the first sharp bend in the road and slow down, just before turning onto the county road toward the Strong Winds Mall and the Shop’N Sav that stayed open until two in the morning and reopened just four hours later. She closed the garage door then, stepped into the hallway and turned the heat to seventy-two degrees and very slowly climbed the stairs. She lifted her nightgown and began speaking to the baby wrapped inside her. “I don’t know what to do with you. You won’t like it here, you won’t even like me. You don’t have a say in all this.”

She lay down, switched off Kurt’s lamp and lay in darkness. I’m on fire, she thought, and there’s nothing left to take off, but it doesn’t smell like summer so what is it, this new season? When Kurt gets back I’ll show him the new season. I’ll be here. I’ll be right here when he gets back. I think I’ll show it to him. Everything. He’ll be so tired. When I look this way for long I think he’s behind me, he’s had plenty of time to sneak up. I can’t miss him. I can’t lose track of where I’ve looked or for how long. I can’t get lost, too. Only one of us can get lost. What are you waiting for? It was always you it was always you it was always you. I’ll sing it to him when he gets back. What are you waiting for? It was always you it was always you it was always you.

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Bio: Stefan Kiesbye is the author of eight books of fiction, including Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone, The Staked Plains, and But I Don’t Know You. German newspaper Die Welt commented that, “Kiesbye is the inventor of the modern German Gothic novel.” His stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, and the Los Angeles Times, among others. Kiesbye teaches creative writing and literature at Sonoma State University. You can find him at his website HERE.

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