$20

“How long’s the Chevy been on cinder blocks?”

I looked up in the mid-summer overcast, sweat falling from my brow into brown eyes. A middle-aged man stood adjacent, leaning against a dirty paneled fence. The man looked like my father. Every man here looks like my father. 

“I don’t know.” I finally said, and it was half of the truth. I don’t remember when it broke down but I know it sat in the foreground of almost all my faded polaroid memories of summers in this place. “A long time.”

The man nodded, and spat on the grass. Brown, like syrup. I could see the bump in his lip from a can of dip. I scratched at a mosquito bite on my bare arm. Threads from my ripped shirt tickled across my neck. 

“‘04? ‘05?” He wagered a guess. Again, I wanted to shake my head, I don’t know. 

“Yeah. Somethin’ like that.” I answered, and I looked back down at the axels I was greasing, the hot inkinesss of it that puddled in my hands. I had to hold my back at a strange angle so my long hair wouldn’t fall into the gears and leave me mauled. My mom said my hair was the only way anyone could still tell I was a girl. 

“Shame.” The man kicked at the dirt. “Must’a been a real beauty in its time.”

He spoke about the truck like someone sizing up a cut of meat, and once I knew he wasn’t going anywhere, I wiped my hands on an old kitchen rag and turned to the overgrown patch of yard where it sat, hollowed and rusted. Once, it was blue, with that iridescent shit they mix into the paint to take an extra few dimes and it only looks good in the sun. Hell, the seasons did a number to it. Now, it was more bubbled orange than anything, with rust waterfalls cascading each door. The cinder blocks held it up from underneath the frame, dappled with onion grass and leftover daffodils. The one good tire was leaned up against the grill.

“It was.” I nodded, offering him a polite yet dismissive smile. “Mama said it would be mine one day, ya know….”

The way the man nodded showed he, in fact, did not know. “Wh’ happened?”

I shrugged, assuming he meant, ‘oh girl, why aren’t you out on the interstate, screaming along to Elvis with a ceramic Jesus on your dash?’, and I licked my dry lips. “Life got in the way.”

The man crossed his arms. “Your old man was gonna fix it up?”

“He still could.” I interjected. “Y’ know… if he had the time.”

“I don’t think time will be able to do it, darlin.” He chuckled heartily. I looked back over my shoulder at the truck, its nose end pointed down into the grass, wearing away at the rims. Even if it had a rev, it would drive straight into the soil. 

“We’ll see.” I answered, turning on the hose so I could wash off my hands. I had forgotten about lunch. 

The man tapped his toes and turned to saunter away, but reckoned, “I bet you the best you’ll get for that thing is scrap money.”

I said nothing, only watched him walk off. In his steps I could feel his scorn, feel the way he was formulating the story he’d tell his wife when he got home, about the gorgeous piece of metal he had seen on his walk home, and how an old bum and his daughter had let it go to shit. How he would have fixed it, would’ve had it on the road doing 90 through a school zone and popping soot into our faces. I tossed the hose down and began my walk down the sidewalk toward the deli. I fished around in my pocket, and couldn’t remember what I had left to sustain myself on. I opened the soft leather folds of my old wallet and pulled out a single bill. 

20 dollars. 

About the Author

Haylie is a sophomore Creative Writing and History student. Her main art forms are fiction, poetry, and textiles. In her fiction work, she explores the reanimation of history, while her poetry focuses upon observation of the modern world.