Written for the June WCC. Come along and cast your vote before the 15th of June. Link in my profile.

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Gravel

I didn't plan on it.

Not like I mulled on it and decided to mow him down. And that's what I'll say when the cops arrive. It'll be like on TV, blue light sweeping over my face, over and over again. Didn't plan on it, I'll say in a meek voice and look earnestly into the eyes of the oldest cop at the scene. I'll put on my girly-girl face and appeal to his fatherly instincts. Or maybe I'll be in shock, gazing into nothingness in front of me, shivering so that they'll drape a standard issue blanket around my shoulders. When they come.

But right now I need a frigging smoke.

I heave myself down his pick-up truck. His. He didn't much like me borrowing it. Didn't like. I like the sound of that. The dumb irony of him, done in by his own damn truck.

Only his feet visible, sticking out beneath the footrest. Scuffed manly-man boots, soiled pant hems. The stench of motor oil and body fluids. They say people wet themselves in the moment. Then again, he might just have splattered himself taking a leak. Not unheard of. Looks all fine in them neatly ironed shirts my mother spends hours starching, but he's a slob. A charismatic lowlife who makes people want to take care of him. My mother with her shifty nervous gaze and sparrow-like body, pecking at the crumbs he scatters around him. And him, a boisterous peacock, loud, demanding space. Hey, look at me. Ain't I a sight for sore eyes? Spreads himself thin. I've got no problem with that considering how thinly I've just spread him over our driveway.

Peacock or not, he'll have smokes, that's all that matters now. Never goes anywhere without them, the chain-smoking bastard. Keeps them his breast pocket for easy access. Though not so easy right now, lying on the ground with his torso and ribs in a purée.

I round the truck and crouch down, gravel prickling my knees through the jeans. I reach without looking. It's wet. A soggy, mushy mess. Messing with evidence and DNA but hell, I'll tell them I tried to feel his pulse. They'll buy that. Even though I drove over that pile of garbage a dozen times, back and forward, back and forward like a goddamn seesaw, they'll buy it. It must be normal to check for a sign of life.

Seems like a thing a daughter would do.

My fingers nudge at the corner of the pack peeking up from his breast pocket. I snatch it out. Sticky. There's blood on the outside, but the glossy white and red cardboard has kept the cigarettes clean.

Marlboro. He's the freaking Marlboro man. The all-American good old boy. Broad shoulders, square jaw, massive arms, walks with a gait. Knows how to turn a head. Blond and beautiful like something plastered across a billboard. Was. Was beautiful. Because he's not so beautiful now that he lies smeared across the driveway gravel. The bulk of him lifting the truck considerably. He's a sizeable man. Was a sizeable man.

A wet crunch, that's all it took.

Like squashing an insect, goop squirting out. Good thing I'm not squeamish because that's what he was, a juicy roach gussied up like a swanky butterfly. Hell, they ought to pin a fricking medal on me for flattening him under those tires. Ought to throw a parade, clip my photo up at the bar next to the other town heroes.

I've got my own lighter, thank God, because I don't fancy another search party into the mangled mess beneath the pick-up truck. Have a vision of myself, the grieving daughter. I ought to stand up, arms wrapped around myself, the evening breeze blowing in from the creek, flapping my hair about. Ought to look distraught, frantic with remorse when they come to pick me up. And I would. I would if I could be assed.

But right now I'm going to enjoy my cigarette. I've just turned seventeen. It's a fitting celebration, blowing smoke rings over my daddy's entrails.

"What have I done," I'll say. When they come. I'll repeat it over and over again with a little sad shake of my head, knowing damn well, I've done the universe a favor. Taken out the trash, made my mark on the world.

But sure, I'll play along. I'll play my part. The handsome Tad Hobbs, good frigging guy with his glittery gilded smile and his easy ways. Your daddy would give an arm and a leg if somebody asked him to. Drinks a bit but what fellow doesn't need let off steam every now and then, slaving away at the rigs, toiling themselves to the bone to put food on the tables like they all do. Working class heroes, risking life and limb to keep their families above the damn poverty line. Can't blame Marlboro man for the occasional visit to the bar. Because he's good people, Tad Hobbs. Not the type to chase tail like them others. "Your mama is one lucky lady," people will say. Maybe that's what eats at me the most. How they're all fooled by that thin layer of dazzling cowboy varnish, fawning over him, constantly. "And he's such a looker too."

He is. Was. His innards in a puddle beneath his pick-up truck. It feels right. Appropriate. Should've done it a long time ago.

I sit my ass down on the curb. Cement biting into my buttocks as I try steadying my hands to light a cigarette. I look at the cherry-sauce streaks of his blood on my fingers and listen for the sirens. There's only crickets and frogs. The next door neighbors' windows are gaping black maws and my mother, well, my mother is another story altogether. Clumped up there in her bed behind those impenetrable walls of denial, mere yards away from I just squished her husband's ribcage. Eyes and ears and all her senses shut off. Like always. Didn't hear. Never knew. My mother, white-knuckled and shamefaced, sitting through all those Sunday sermons, the preacher whirring on about sinners, saints and turning the cheek and she went one up and turned her whole head. Never did see nothing.

Hell. I might have to call the cops myself. At this hour those chipmunks will be slouching at the sheriff's office, talking smack. And I know that because that's where Marlboro man will hang out on a quiet Tuesday night. Poker with the boys. Back-thumping, good old boys having a bit of fun. They'll hate me, I realize.

There won't be a dry eye at his frigging funeral. People are bound to get sentimental and soppy over that maggot. "Sure was a charmer, that Tad Hobbs," they'll say. "God always take the good ones first." Marlboro man, loved and beloved. A rough and tumble kind of guy, everyone's best buddy, always generous, always ready to lend a fellow a hand.

And hell, I'll squeeze a tear or two out for him too. Sure I will. Just so that they'll never know that I've been dreaming about this day as long as I can remember. Though of course in my fancy daydreams, I wouldn't have been the one snuffing him out. I'd be suitably shaken and Mr. Rhetts, the undertaker would've folded his forehead in compassionate worry-lines, a gentle hold on my elbow as he steered me in to inspect his work. "We tried to make him look like himself," he'd say, gesturing at the made-up cadaver in his Sunday bests. Blond hair hairs prayed, the sharp movie star jaw clean-shaven and powdered. A handsome corpse.

The cigarette tastes like tar and gives me no pleasure. I've got no regrets though. Not like I'm sorry about putting his damn truck in reverse and driving over that heap of moaning manure one last time. If I could wind back time and do it all over again, I sure as hell would. And I'd enjoy it. But the air smells of wet rotting leaves and disappointment.

It ought to feel better. This. Me on the curb smoking and him – him – oozing blood and intestines down our driveway. A trickle of it making its way in a tiny river towards the street. It should feel better.

They'll ask me why I did it.

Panic engulfs my throat. It shoves the smoke out of my airways, fills me up, takes over. My hand twitching, herky-jerky jittery as I bring the cigarette up to my mouth another time. I suck at the filter, trying to extract something, anything. A bit of calm, perhaps. They'll ask me why I did it and I don't know. I don't fucking know, alright. A cliché, something trite, something common, not even Jerry Springer material. Happens every day, in every town, every little shithole on earth. Nothing special. Not even worth a raised eyebrow. Hush your mouth and keep it shut.

I'm glad I can't see his hands from where I sit. I hope I mashed them up good. His ugly, ugly hands. Shrimpy pink, pudgy and puffy, each finger pad, a hard yellowish crust. Hands that take, take, take.

Tad Hobbs was a good man, that's what they'll say and all the rest, all the other filth will rot with him. As for me, I'm not naïve enough to believe it'll make any difference. I'll serve time, might even get put down. But I think of his hard nicotine stained fingertips burrowing into my thighs and maybe that's enough. Tad Hobbs will never leave another moon-sliver mark on my skin.

Finally, finally. One of my sluggard neighbors must have picked up the damn phone, because I can hear them now. Sirens. I huddle there at the curb. Toss the cigarette butt in the bushes, smoothing my hair back. Don't want to look like a troll for my mug shot.

They put a blanket over my shoulders. Just like I'd imagined. My mother standing on the stoop, looking all messed up and feathery like she just woke up. Her mouth a keyhole, eyes peering at the cop. I know what she's saying. Didn't hear nothing. And I think, where the hell were you all this time? Where were you at, you weak, pathetic sap? But she's irrelevant, I know that. She's a nobody, a background extra. Might as well have been a cardboard cut-out for the difference she's made on the world. Zero. Zilch.

The cop called Joey says something that ends with honey. I don't stand up and hug myself and I don't act the grieving daughter. I don't have any wind in my hair and I don't feel sorry. I feel nothing.

"I didn't plan on it," I say, that's all. That's what I'll say until the cows come home. I'll repeat it if I need to, again and again and again. Because the other stuff, it's not even worth mentioning. Happens to some sucker every day, in every town, every little shithole on earth. Mothers turn their heads away and men take. Take without asking. Nothing to get your panties in a wad about. Nothing to call Oprah about. Just the way it is.

Someone ushers me into the police car. A big fat paw on my skull so I won't knock my thick homicidal head on the door. I cast a glance back at Marlboro man's boots where they poke out from beneath the pick-up truck, thinking of all them driveways in all those little towns, in all those stinking forgotten armpits of this country. And of all the men who ought to lie mangled in their driveways in a slop of flesh and bone and guts, daughters perched on the curb, all of them thinking - he deserved it. He fricking deserved it.

I've made my mark. And I ain't sorry.