ROCKS and Stones and trees
John Conaway
Jeremy and Beth were in Jeremy’s car driving across the Mackinaw Bridge. They were on their way up to Copper State College for the start of the fall semester. It had been a long drive up the spine of Michigan. They’d been strangers starting out but they were getting to know each other. She thought he was nice—although not nice looking—and perhaps a bit dull. He thought she was nerdy but he liked nerdy girls. She said to herself "ok, so he’s not Jack Kerouac, so what? He’s a business major. What do you expect?"
Besides he was a steady and reliable driver. He stayed within the speed limit and always used his turn signals when changing lanes. She certainly felt safer driving over the bridge with Jeremy than she would have with Jack Kerouac. It was the biggest bridge she’d ever been over and she wasn’t crazy about heights. Jeremy pointed out the sailboats hugging the shore near Mackinaw Island but she refused to look. Looking down made her dizzy.
She was happy when they were over the bridge. She slept leaning against the passenger side window with her head on a pillow. While she slept he daydreamed about all the things he wanted to talk to her about when she woke up. But when she woke up she was annoyed at him for letting her sleep through Seney, the setting of one of her favorite Hemingway stories. She had asked him to wake her up when they got there but it slipped his mind. There really wasn’t anything to see. Jeremy had never heard of the story. Reading stories had always seemed to him like such a waste of time.
Jeremy met Beth in the lobby of her dorm. Her suitemates were impressed that she had a date on the first weekend of her college career. She enjoyed impressing them but wasn’t as excited about her “date” as they were. It was with Jeremy after all. Why, she wondered, did she always attract such safe, boring men? She didn’t like to think of herself as cautious. She liked to think of herself as adventurous and a touch reckless. To be honest she wasn’t that crazy about being seen with Jeremy. She thought she should be able to do better than him, at least in the looks department.
When she got downstairs and saw him standing in the lobby empty handed she was annoyed that he hadn’t brought flowers—or maybe just a flower. A single rose to symbolize their first date would have been a nice touch. But then could she really expect such a romantic gesture out of as dull a fellow as Jeremy?
Jeremy and Beth walked to classes together through pools of fallen leaves. Winter came early up North. It was only October and already the trees were bare. The wind had shifted north in the night. Jeremy slouched beside her with his hands in his pockets. His posture was terrible. Why had his parents not taught him to stand up straight? Jeremy was walking her to her Major British Writers class which was being taught this semester by Hauschka. Hauschka had wavy, jet black hair, penetrating blue eyes, and a thin beard; he wore a stud in his left ear. He read Yeats with such passion it made her sweat. Hauschka was her idea of a man.
While Jeremy sat in statistics listening to another boring lecture he doodled on his notepad and thought of a line from a poem Beth had read to him “rolled round in earth’s diurnal course with rocks and stones and trees.” He normally didn’t like poetry because he didn’t understand it but this line stuck in his mind for some reason. He wondered if the poet—his name was Wordsmith or something like that—had ever lived in the Upper Peninsula.
Jeremy and Beth walked around the cafeteria with their steaming bowls of vegetable soup on trays looking for a table. The cafeteria was always crowded during lunch on cold winter days. They found an empty table and watched, through the big picture window, students walking to and from classes. A north wind swirled leaves across the lawn. Ursula Evans from Beth’s Major British Writers class, spotting Beth, walked up to their table and asked if she could join them. Ursula was drop dead beautiful. Beth would sometimes exchange meaningful glances with Ursula while Hauschka recited poetry. “Isn’t he the most gorgeous man you’ve ever seen?” Ursula asked Beth one day when they were walking together after class.
Beth reluctantly introduced Ursula to Jeremy. He nodded and slurped his soup. Ursula seemed uncomfortable with Jeremy’s table manners. She ate quickly and excused herself. When she was gone Beth asked Jeremy “What do you think of Ursula? Don’t you think she’s beautiful?”
“She’s not as beautiful as you,” he said.
Beth was caught off guard. It was such bullshit that it brought into question the credibility of everything he’d ever said to her. She was embarrassed and furious. She gathered up her belongings and walked away from the table in a huff. “Did I say something wrong?” he called after her.
Later in class Ursula asked Beth if Jeremy was her boyfriend. “Oh god no,” Beth said. “I barely know him.”
Jeremy and Beth had pizza at Genaro’s and then went back to Jeremy’s room to study. They studied for a while and then they popped popcorn and streamed a movie on Jeremy’s laptop. They lay on the bed watching it together with the bowl of popcorn between them. It was late when the movie was over and it was much more convenient for her to stay over than to walk all the way across campus to her dorm. She had remembered to bring her toothbrush.
They slept as far away from each other as possible in the small bed. She was glad that he hadn’t tried anything—not even a kiss. But she wondered why he hadn’t tried anything? Did he not say he thought she was beautiful? What was his problem? Was he the type who would one day, out of the blue, leave her for a man? Or maybe it was just shyness. She watched him sleep as long as she could stand it. What a big dork he was, snoring and drooling on the pillow.
Jeremy and Beth woke up one snowy Saturday morning in early December. They drove downtown in Jeremy’s car, rented snowshoes, and drove out to Sugarloaf Mountain. Beth caught onto the snowshoes quickly. Jeremy stumbled clumsily around the parking lot trying to get used to his. What a klutz he was. They had the mountain to themselves so she didn’t feel the acute embarrassment she always felt being seen with him in public. And then she’d feel guilty for being embarrassed by him and pissed at him for making her feel guilty.
She was way ahead of him on the trail up the mountain. He finally caught up and they stood on the summit staring down at the cold, blue surface of Lake Superior spread out at their feet. Looking down made her dizzy and she stood far back from the edge and peeked over. Winter storms had sculpted a ridgeline of ice along the shoreline as far as the eye could see. She wondered if such a dull fellow as Jeremy had the ability to apprehend the raw poetry of the place. She didn’t feel that she could really share the experience with him. She imagined herself standing at the summit beside Hauschka.
Jeremy and Beth were in the shower. “May I have the soap,” she asked looking at him over her shoulder. She held out her hand like a surgeon waiting for the nurse to hand her a surgical tool. Jeremy put the soapy bar into her hand. He respected her modesty and tried not to stare at her body. As a rule he thought people were much better looking in clothes.
Beth thought the human body was a beautiful thing but not Jeremy’s. He was already paunchy and his hair was thinning. It was far too easy to imagine him as an older man. It was impossible to imagine Hauschka as an older man. He was ageless.
Later standing in front of the vanity, Beth wrapped in a towel, Jeremy in skimpy underwear that he must have thought were sexy, they brushed their teeth and flossed. When they were finished flossing he put his arms around her and kissed her affectionately. Beth’s lips retained the minty taste of Pepsodent toothpaste.
Jeremy and Beth lay in bed listening to the commotion in the hallway. Nick and Danny from across the hall were having one of their contests to see which of them could hook up with the most girls in a single night. All night long there were voices in the hallway, doors slamming shut, girls coming and going. Some of the residents of the floor pooled their money and bought a pony keg; they’d applaud the arrival of Nick or Danny with his latest girl. Either Nick or Danny would come walking down the hallway with the latest girl on his arm unembarrassed and grinning while the spectators chanted the number of the girl; three, three, three or four, four, four. Sometimes the girl was grinning too, almost as if she was in on the joke.
Jeremy took Beth to Genaro’s for her birthday. While they were waiting for their drinks Beth spotted Hauschka at a table in the far corner of the restaurant. His dinner companion had her back to Beth but she’d seen the back of that beautiful head many times in Major British Writer’s class. It was Ursula Evans. Beth took her nerdy, black rimmed glasses out of her handbag and put them on. Jeremy was rattling on about something. She didn’t hear a word he was saying. The candle on Hauschka’s table illuminated his mesmerizing blue eyes, and his bushy, quizzical eyebrows. He was wearing a tweed coat, and a solid black tie. His face in the candlelight radiated love. His hands were resting on the table palms up and Ursula was gently messaging his palms with the tips of her fingers. Jeremy snapped his fingers in Beth’s face. “Earth to Beth,” he said.
“Goddamn it Jeremy, would you please shut up,” she said.
Beth and Jeremy drove downstate together for the term break. Beth had begged him not to get her anything for Christmas but he found the perfect gift at Macy’s, a red wool scarf. When he drove to her house to deliver the gift her mother came to the door holding a glass of wine. “She’s getting her hair cut and then she’s going to the spa,” her mother said. “She’s been buying clothes left and right. She went to the eye doctor and got contact lenses. I think she’s in love.” She winked at Jeremy. After Christmas Beth called him to thank him for the scarf. “You seem to have made it your mission in life to make me feel guilty,” she said.
Jeremy drove Beth across campus to Richardson Hall for her appointment with Hauschka. Normally they would have walked but Beth wasn’t dressed for the elements. Her excuse for the short skirt and six inch heels was that there was a birthday party for Ursula Evans after class. She wasn’t surprised that gullible Jeremy bought her story. Jeremy kissed her goodbye and told her she looked beautiful. Jeremy’s indiscriminant compliments were meaningless and they annoyed Beth. She really didn’t care what he thought. He dropped her off at Richardson Hall and went on to his boring Quantitative Analysis class.
Beth sat on a bench outside Hauschka’s office waiting. The front of the office was paneled with frosted glass. You could see dark shapes behind the glass and hear muffled voices inside. She thought about how she’d accomplish her mission. Maybe she’d pull a Sharon Stone and sit in his guest chair with her legs open. It was fascinating to imagine how it would unfold. Perhaps he’d walk to the office door and lock it. Then he’d remove his pants or maybe she’d remove his pants. But his office was cramped and cluttered with books and papers. She wasn’t sure that if she pulled a Sharon Stone he’d be able to see anything over the stacks of student essays. A better approach might be to simply stand up and remove her clothing and then walk around the desk and sit on his lap.
She wondered where they’d do it—on top of the desk perhaps. In his office chair? On the floor? While she was trying to imagine the scene the voices inside the office grew louder. There seemed to be an argument going on although she couldn’t hear what either Hauschka or his guest was saying. The volume increased to an alarming level and then the door burst open and a woman ran through the door followed closely by Hauschka. He reached for her arm and she pulled away. “Keep your fucking hands off me Alexi,” she said. She was very pretty but too old to be a student. Could she have been his wife? Hauschka ducked back into his office and grabbed his parka, the one with the fur lined hood. He glanced at Beth. “Who are you?"
“I’m Beth.”
“You’re here for me?”
“Yes, I’m in your Major British Writer’s class. I have an appointment.”
“We’ll have to reschedule. Call me,” he said racing after the girl.
Beth and Jeremy were sitting at the bar in The End drinking shots. Jeremy had told her that he loved her that morning in the shower and it had put her in a foul, punishing mood. She was back to wearing her clunky, black rimmed glasses and her normal clothes. The End had a pool table and there were several people playing. One of the guys came over and tapped Beth on the shoulder. He had long, dark hair and a beard. “I need a partner. Would you like to play?”
Beth said: “Sure, why not.”
He said: “Your boyfriend doesn’t mind does he?”
Beth said: “He’s not my boyfriend.”
Jeremy watched them play. The guy was teaching Beth how to hold the cue stick and how to line up the shots. They were playing against another couple and they lost every game because Beth didn’t know how to play pool but the guy kept feeding quarters into the pool table anyway.
To kill time Jeremy went outside for a breath of fresh air. A snowplow rushed past on the far side of Presque Isle Avenue, its blade angled toward the curb shaving the snow into the steep banks already collected on the shoulders of the road. A tow truck followed close behind, tire chains rattling. Rocks and stones and trees, Jeremy thought. Back inside The End Jeremy stomped the snow off his boots. Beth was at the bar ordering drinks. ‘I thought you’d gone home,’ she said.
"How long will you be," Jeremy asked.
"I don’t know. It’s ok if you want to leave. I’ll catch up with you later."
"That’s ok,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait."
Beth and Jeremy were in Jeremy’s car outside The End. They’d had an argument and Beth wasn’t speaking to him. The wind was howling and the snow was blowing sideways. Jeremy cranked the engine; it made a clicking noise but wouldn’t start. Beth stared straight ahead. He tried the headlights. Nothing. Beth’s silence was punishing. While Jeremy was looking through his wallet for the AAA card Nick’s Jeep pulled into the parking lot. Danny was riding with him. Jeremy rolled down his window. ‘What’s going on neighbor,’ Danny said to Jeremy.
Jeremy jumped out of his car followed by Beth. “Hi, boys,” she said.
“Where you headed?” Nick asked Beth. Beth walked around Jeremy’s car and gave Nick and Danny a hug. “Nowhere I’m afraid,” she said. “His battery is dead.”
“We might be able to help with that,” Nick said. Beth got into the Jeep with Danny. Nick opened the hood and connected the jumper cables to his battery. He showed Jeremy how to connect the other end of the cables to the Saturn’s battery. Nick got back into the Jeep and revved the engine. Jeremy’s car turned over on the first crank. Jeremy disconnected the cables from both cars. Nick rolled down his window. “We’ve got some weed back at the room. Why don’t you join us?”
Jeremy stood waiting for Beth to get out of the Jeep. “Are you coming,” he asked but she still wasn’t speaking to him. “We’ll meet you there,” Nick said. “Don’t worry about Beth. We’ll take good care of her.”
Jeremy followed in their tire tracks through the drifting snow. He drove as fast as he could safely drive trying to keep up but the taillights of the Jeep kept getting smaller and then disappeared. On an unplowed side street Jeremy slid into a drift. He tried rocking the car out of the drift but the tires kept spinning, digging in deeper and deeper.
John Conaway
Jeremy and Beth were in Jeremy’s car driving across the Mackinaw Bridge. They were on their way up to Copper State College for the start of the fall semester. It had been a long drive up the spine of Michigan. They’d been strangers starting out but they were getting to know each other. She thought he was nice—although not nice looking—and perhaps a bit dull. He thought she was nerdy but he liked nerdy girls. She said to herself "ok, so he’s not Jack Kerouac, so what? He’s a business major. What do you expect?"
Besides he was a steady and reliable driver. He stayed within the speed limit and always used his turn signals when changing lanes. She certainly felt safer driving over the bridge with Jeremy than she would have with Jack Kerouac. It was the biggest bridge she’d ever been over and she wasn’t crazy about heights. Jeremy pointed out the sailboats hugging the shore near Mackinaw Island but she refused to look. Looking down made her dizzy.
She was happy when they were over the bridge. She slept leaning against the passenger side window with her head on a pillow. While she slept he daydreamed about all the things he wanted to talk to her about when she woke up. But when she woke up she was annoyed at him for letting her sleep through Seney, the setting of one of her favorite Hemingway stories. She had asked him to wake her up when they got there but it slipped his mind. There really wasn’t anything to see. Jeremy had never heard of the story. Reading stories had always seemed to him like such a waste of time.
Jeremy met Beth in the lobby of her dorm. Her suitemates were impressed that she had a date on the first weekend of her college career. She enjoyed impressing them but wasn’t as excited about her “date” as they were. It was with Jeremy after all. Why, she wondered, did she always attract such safe, boring men? She didn’t like to think of herself as cautious. She liked to think of herself as adventurous and a touch reckless. To be honest she wasn’t that crazy about being seen with Jeremy. She thought she should be able to do better than him, at least in the looks department.
When she got downstairs and saw him standing in the lobby empty handed she was annoyed that he hadn’t brought flowers—or maybe just a flower. A single rose to symbolize their first date would have been a nice touch. But then could she really expect such a romantic gesture out of as dull a fellow as Jeremy?
Jeremy and Beth walked to classes together through pools of fallen leaves. Winter came early up North. It was only October and already the trees were bare. The wind had shifted north in the night. Jeremy slouched beside her with his hands in his pockets. His posture was terrible. Why had his parents not taught him to stand up straight? Jeremy was walking her to her Major British Writers class which was being taught this semester by Hauschka. Hauschka had wavy, jet black hair, penetrating blue eyes, and a thin beard; he wore a stud in his left ear. He read Yeats with such passion it made her sweat. Hauschka was her idea of a man.
While Jeremy sat in statistics listening to another boring lecture he doodled on his notepad and thought of a line from a poem Beth had read to him “rolled round in earth’s diurnal course with rocks and stones and trees.” He normally didn’t like poetry because he didn’t understand it but this line stuck in his mind for some reason. He wondered if the poet—his name was Wordsmith or something like that—had ever lived in the Upper Peninsula.
Jeremy and Beth walked around the cafeteria with their steaming bowls of vegetable soup on trays looking for a table. The cafeteria was always crowded during lunch on cold winter days. They found an empty table and watched, through the big picture window, students walking to and from classes. A north wind swirled leaves across the lawn. Ursula Evans from Beth’s Major British Writers class, spotting Beth, walked up to their table and asked if she could join them. Ursula was drop dead beautiful. Beth would sometimes exchange meaningful glances with Ursula while Hauschka recited poetry. “Isn’t he the most gorgeous man you’ve ever seen?” Ursula asked Beth one day when they were walking together after class.
Beth reluctantly introduced Ursula to Jeremy. He nodded and slurped his soup. Ursula seemed uncomfortable with Jeremy’s table manners. She ate quickly and excused herself. When she was gone Beth asked Jeremy “What do you think of Ursula? Don’t you think she’s beautiful?”
“She’s not as beautiful as you,” he said.
Beth was caught off guard. It was such bullshit that it brought into question the credibility of everything he’d ever said to her. She was embarrassed and furious. She gathered up her belongings and walked away from the table in a huff. “Did I say something wrong?” he called after her.
Later in class Ursula asked Beth if Jeremy was her boyfriend. “Oh god no,” Beth said. “I barely know him.”
Jeremy and Beth had pizza at Genaro’s and then went back to Jeremy’s room to study. They studied for a while and then they popped popcorn and streamed a movie on Jeremy’s laptop. They lay on the bed watching it together with the bowl of popcorn between them. It was late when the movie was over and it was much more convenient for her to stay over than to walk all the way across campus to her dorm. She had remembered to bring her toothbrush.
They slept as far away from each other as possible in the small bed. She was glad that he hadn’t tried anything—not even a kiss. But she wondered why he hadn’t tried anything? Did he not say he thought she was beautiful? What was his problem? Was he the type who would one day, out of the blue, leave her for a man? Or maybe it was just shyness. She watched him sleep as long as she could stand it. What a big dork he was, snoring and drooling on the pillow.
Jeremy and Beth woke up one snowy Saturday morning in early December. They drove downtown in Jeremy’s car, rented snowshoes, and drove out to Sugarloaf Mountain. Beth caught onto the snowshoes quickly. Jeremy stumbled clumsily around the parking lot trying to get used to his. What a klutz he was. They had the mountain to themselves so she didn’t feel the acute embarrassment she always felt being seen with him in public. And then she’d feel guilty for being embarrassed by him and pissed at him for making her feel guilty.
She was way ahead of him on the trail up the mountain. He finally caught up and they stood on the summit staring down at the cold, blue surface of Lake Superior spread out at their feet. Looking down made her dizzy and she stood far back from the edge and peeked over. Winter storms had sculpted a ridgeline of ice along the shoreline as far as the eye could see. She wondered if such a dull fellow as Jeremy had the ability to apprehend the raw poetry of the place. She didn’t feel that she could really share the experience with him. She imagined herself standing at the summit beside Hauschka.
Jeremy and Beth were in the shower. “May I have the soap,” she asked looking at him over her shoulder. She held out her hand like a surgeon waiting for the nurse to hand her a surgical tool. Jeremy put the soapy bar into her hand. He respected her modesty and tried not to stare at her body. As a rule he thought people were much better looking in clothes.
Beth thought the human body was a beautiful thing but not Jeremy’s. He was already paunchy and his hair was thinning. It was far too easy to imagine him as an older man. It was impossible to imagine Hauschka as an older man. He was ageless.
Later standing in front of the vanity, Beth wrapped in a towel, Jeremy in skimpy underwear that he must have thought were sexy, they brushed their teeth and flossed. When they were finished flossing he put his arms around her and kissed her affectionately. Beth’s lips retained the minty taste of Pepsodent toothpaste.
Jeremy and Beth lay in bed listening to the commotion in the hallway. Nick and Danny from across the hall were having one of their contests to see which of them could hook up with the most girls in a single night. All night long there were voices in the hallway, doors slamming shut, girls coming and going. Some of the residents of the floor pooled their money and bought a pony keg; they’d applaud the arrival of Nick or Danny with his latest girl. Either Nick or Danny would come walking down the hallway with the latest girl on his arm unembarrassed and grinning while the spectators chanted the number of the girl; three, three, three or four, four, four. Sometimes the girl was grinning too, almost as if she was in on the joke.
Jeremy took Beth to Genaro’s for her birthday. While they were waiting for their drinks Beth spotted Hauschka at a table in the far corner of the restaurant. His dinner companion had her back to Beth but she’d seen the back of that beautiful head many times in Major British Writer’s class. It was Ursula Evans. Beth took her nerdy, black rimmed glasses out of her handbag and put them on. Jeremy was rattling on about something. She didn’t hear a word he was saying. The candle on Hauschka’s table illuminated his mesmerizing blue eyes, and his bushy, quizzical eyebrows. He was wearing a tweed coat, and a solid black tie. His face in the candlelight radiated love. His hands were resting on the table palms up and Ursula was gently messaging his palms with the tips of her fingers. Jeremy snapped his fingers in Beth’s face. “Earth to Beth,” he said.
“Goddamn it Jeremy, would you please shut up,” she said.
Beth and Jeremy drove downstate together for the term break. Beth had begged him not to get her anything for Christmas but he found the perfect gift at Macy’s, a red wool scarf. When he drove to her house to deliver the gift her mother came to the door holding a glass of wine. “She’s getting her hair cut and then she’s going to the spa,” her mother said. “She’s been buying clothes left and right. She went to the eye doctor and got contact lenses. I think she’s in love.” She winked at Jeremy. After Christmas Beth called him to thank him for the scarf. “You seem to have made it your mission in life to make me feel guilty,” she said.
Jeremy drove Beth across campus to Richardson Hall for her appointment with Hauschka. Normally they would have walked but Beth wasn’t dressed for the elements. Her excuse for the short skirt and six inch heels was that there was a birthday party for Ursula Evans after class. She wasn’t surprised that gullible Jeremy bought her story. Jeremy kissed her goodbye and told her she looked beautiful. Jeremy’s indiscriminant compliments were meaningless and they annoyed Beth. She really didn’t care what he thought. He dropped her off at Richardson Hall and went on to his boring Quantitative Analysis class.
Beth sat on a bench outside Hauschka’s office waiting. The front of the office was paneled with frosted glass. You could see dark shapes behind the glass and hear muffled voices inside. She thought about how she’d accomplish her mission. Maybe she’d pull a Sharon Stone and sit in his guest chair with her legs open. It was fascinating to imagine how it would unfold. Perhaps he’d walk to the office door and lock it. Then he’d remove his pants or maybe she’d remove his pants. But his office was cramped and cluttered with books and papers. She wasn’t sure that if she pulled a Sharon Stone he’d be able to see anything over the stacks of student essays. A better approach might be to simply stand up and remove her clothing and then walk around the desk and sit on his lap.
She wondered where they’d do it—on top of the desk perhaps. In his office chair? On the floor? While she was trying to imagine the scene the voices inside the office grew louder. There seemed to be an argument going on although she couldn’t hear what either Hauschka or his guest was saying. The volume increased to an alarming level and then the door burst open and a woman ran through the door followed closely by Hauschka. He reached for her arm and she pulled away. “Keep your fucking hands off me Alexi,” she said. She was very pretty but too old to be a student. Could she have been his wife? Hauschka ducked back into his office and grabbed his parka, the one with the fur lined hood. He glanced at Beth. “Who are you?"
“I’m Beth.”
“You’re here for me?”
“Yes, I’m in your Major British Writer’s class. I have an appointment.”
“We’ll have to reschedule. Call me,” he said racing after the girl.
Beth and Jeremy were sitting at the bar in The End drinking shots. Jeremy had told her that he loved her that morning in the shower and it had put her in a foul, punishing mood. She was back to wearing her clunky, black rimmed glasses and her normal clothes. The End had a pool table and there were several people playing. One of the guys came over and tapped Beth on the shoulder. He had long, dark hair and a beard. “I need a partner. Would you like to play?”
Beth said: “Sure, why not.”
He said: “Your boyfriend doesn’t mind does he?”
Beth said: “He’s not my boyfriend.”
Jeremy watched them play. The guy was teaching Beth how to hold the cue stick and how to line up the shots. They were playing against another couple and they lost every game because Beth didn’t know how to play pool but the guy kept feeding quarters into the pool table anyway.
To kill time Jeremy went outside for a breath of fresh air. A snowplow rushed past on the far side of Presque Isle Avenue, its blade angled toward the curb shaving the snow into the steep banks already collected on the shoulders of the road. A tow truck followed close behind, tire chains rattling. Rocks and stones and trees, Jeremy thought. Back inside The End Jeremy stomped the snow off his boots. Beth was at the bar ordering drinks. ‘I thought you’d gone home,’ she said.
"How long will you be," Jeremy asked.
"I don’t know. It’s ok if you want to leave. I’ll catch up with you later."
"That’s ok,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait."
Beth and Jeremy were in Jeremy’s car outside The End. They’d had an argument and Beth wasn’t speaking to him. The wind was howling and the snow was blowing sideways. Jeremy cranked the engine; it made a clicking noise but wouldn’t start. Beth stared straight ahead. He tried the headlights. Nothing. Beth’s silence was punishing. While Jeremy was looking through his wallet for the AAA card Nick’s Jeep pulled into the parking lot. Danny was riding with him. Jeremy rolled down his window. ‘What’s going on neighbor,’ Danny said to Jeremy.
Jeremy jumped out of his car followed by Beth. “Hi, boys,” she said.
“Where you headed?” Nick asked Beth. Beth walked around Jeremy’s car and gave Nick and Danny a hug. “Nowhere I’m afraid,” she said. “His battery is dead.”
“We might be able to help with that,” Nick said. Beth got into the Jeep with Danny. Nick opened the hood and connected the jumper cables to his battery. He showed Jeremy how to connect the other end of the cables to the Saturn’s battery. Nick got back into the Jeep and revved the engine. Jeremy’s car turned over on the first crank. Jeremy disconnected the cables from both cars. Nick rolled down his window. “We’ve got some weed back at the room. Why don’t you join us?”
Jeremy stood waiting for Beth to get out of the Jeep. “Are you coming,” he asked but she still wasn’t speaking to him. “We’ll meet you there,” Nick said. “Don’t worry about Beth. We’ll take good care of her.”
Jeremy followed in their tire tracks through the drifting snow. He drove as fast as he could safely drive trying to keep up but the taillights of the Jeep kept getting smaller and then disappeared. On an unplowed side street Jeremy slid into a drift. He tried rocking the car out of the drift but the tires kept spinning, digging in deeper and deeper.