Go ahead and do it, Bobby. Drive off the same pier you used to jump off when you were six and eleven and seventeen. Close the windows tight before you hit the gas. Cuff your hand to the steering wheel so you can’t chicken out at the bottom, can’t fill your lungs with air and slip out the window. Only eight feet to the surface, Bobby. But that’s forever when you’re cuffed to the wheel.

Think what they’ll say about you: how you always were a fuckup, and it was just a matter of time before you proved it once and for all. Think of the anguish on the faces you love, Bobby, the drained and caved-in looks on mouths you once kissed. Then let your own sad mouth be your last memory—not your parents, not your brother and sisters, not Paula, not the money you stole from Paula’s dad fifty bucks at a time for the whole two years you worked for him. Just your mouth and all the things it never had the guts to say.

Don’t remember the look on Paula’s face when she caught you. Don’t remember the way she spat fiancé in your face like it was a word you could never live up to. Don’t remember the times her dad said you might as well learn to do X or Y or Z right now, because someday you’d have to do it on your own. The business, Bobby—he was giving you, a slob like you, the whole goddam business! Don’t remember how your own dad didn’t hit you when you were seven and stole money from him, how he sat you down at the kitchen table instead and just stared at you till you cried. Don’t remember diving into that lake when you were six to look for bones from the accident that happened in 1958. Don’t remember diving in when you were eleven, looking for lost treasure. Don’t remember diving in when you were seventeen, looking for a ring or an ID bracelet—something the dead people left behind so at least you could know them, touch a piece of the world they touched before you ever could.

No, Bobby. Don’t think about any of that. Think about the click of the cuffs, nice and solid and irrefutable. Nobody in the world can pull your hand from that steering wheel now—not Samson, not Goliath. Think about how this is most definitely not an accident anymore. Think about your right foot hitting the gas, about the feeling when there’s no more pier left for your wheels to grip. Don’t remember Brent’s voice from the lower bunk when you used to tell him ghost stories at night, or the twitchy eye he had all through sixth grade when you weren’t there to protect him. Don’t remember how your baby sister smelled when you rolled her in lavender, or how your mom swore and laughed when she tried making pasta from scratch, or how your father cried when you showed him the ring you bought Paula with the money you stole from her dad. Don’t remember how Paula got down on her knees and begged you to give that money back. Don’t think about the key for the cuffs, laughing at you from the back seat. Don’t think how Paula told you it could still happen—the wedding, the kids, the business, everything—if you just gave that money back.

Don’t think about any of it, Bobby. Rev the engine and stay in the abstract. Respect your prior decision and think what an idiot you’ll look like if you back out now. A felon on the pier at 2:00 in the morning, handcuffed to his steering wheel, chickening out on suicide and waiting for somebody to come rescue him. It’ll become the central metaphor of your life, Bobby, the only thing anybody needs to know about you. Can’t pull the trigger. Will sit and wait for somebody to save him, doesn’t care how stupid it makes him look. You want people saying that about you? Want them thinking you’re one of those pathetic wannabe suicides out for the one brand of attention nobody alive can give them?

No, Bobby. You don’t want that. Show them all you’re serious. Show them you care enough about this life to leave it when you shit the nest. Pull your foot off the brake and hit the gas, fly off the pier like the birds you dreamed of being, watch the water seep through the vents onto your feet. Tug at those handcuffs out of instinct, as if a moment of self-forgiveness can change a damn thing, then bang on the window with your free hand when you realize it can’t.

And when your breath runs out look to your left, toward the rusted frame of that ’51 Chevy those people drowned in before you were born—the one you used to make believe you were stuck in before you squirted up to the surface, laughing. Remember those days? Let your soul swim up just like that, even though your body’s cuffed to the wheel. Think how someday the little kids of your town will dive in and wonder about you. Look for your lost treasure, for the pieces of life you left behind.

Drive, Bobby. Foot off the brake. C’mon, drive. Damn you. 

	About the Author: Steven Wingate's short story collection Wifeshopping won the 2007 Bakeless Prize for Fiction from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and was published by Houghton Mifflin in 2008. His fiction, hybrid genre work, and reviews have appeared in Gulf Coast, Mississippi Review, The Pinch, The Journal, Colorado Review, Brand (UK), Sonora Review, and elsewhere. He lives his analog life in Colorado, with his wife and two irascible sons, and his digital life at www.stevenwingate.com.

Home    About Us    Submissions    Pushcart Nominees     Masthead     Archives