White Trash Beautiful

Author’s Note:

The title, and the story, is taken from a song with the same name by Everclear. I can no longer tell you what state of mind I was in when I wrote the story, but I can tell you that at that point I was addicted to the song. By the time the story was written White Trash Beautiful had been out for at least a couple of years (the album was released May 25th 2004), and for whatever reason it struck me to make a story from it. If you have never heard the song, I implore you to listen to it before you read the story; then I suggest you read the story and look up the lyrics. I’m sure you will be pleasantly surprised.

I must say that I didn’t give this story justice when I first put it up on www.writing.com, after reviewing it in April of 2010 I realized that there were so many mistakes. Though I am sure there are still a few mistakes, I believe I have painstakingly made sure most of them are gone.
On the very first read through, after years of it being neglected (the website says I posted it the day before my May 6th 2007), I actually almost cried, and to be honest I still had to stop and center myself. I hope that you will have to do the same thing.

You can find my writing blog at http://nathanpeterson.blog.com.

On the Road

          Behind the dirty white counter of Colin's Dinner is a young twenty-something year old woman with long curly red hair reaching down to her shoulders. Her dark brown eyes gently caress the coffee stained counter she has wiped so many times throughout her life. She has an idea that she might wipe these counters for eternity. Her small and perky breasts are hidden against her chest by a tight bra under a simple white dress shirt with a small ketchup stain above her right breast from an empty plate of fries she tipped over. Her stomach bulges outwards, like an overfilled oven full of buns, partially hidden by her black maternity dress pants that cost five dollars at the local thrift shop, possibly owned by some rich man’s pregnant wife before her.

        She can only imagine what it would be like to be rich, what she could have and what she could buy for her baby. Dreams, that is all they are. She will never be rich, nor will she ever see life near the top of the middle class, knowing it would be luck just to touch the midpoint. She looks out onto the street with her beautiful brown eyes, wondering if she will ever live in an actual home instead of the dirty trailer park she has lived most of her life in.

        Her face is as smooth as a baby's behind, untouched by the blemishes of her adolescent years. She wears very little makeup, some might whisper that it is still far too much, like her husband, and only serves to mask her inner beauty. Her tired eyes show her lack of sleep, worrying about Tucker constantly on the road, and the bills that she cannot pay this month. 


        He is a strong man, a handsome man. His hands are at nine and three o'clock on the large black steering wheel in his eighteen wheeler. His blue eyes show how tired he is, trying to drive home as fast as possible. His strong and sleek chest is draped under a layer of polyester and cotton blend, a white t-shirt with the word MINE along the front that had been a present from his beautiful Goddess, waiting for him to arrive home after the particularly long haul. His blue jeans are loose and dirty, soiled with the stain of ketchup from a plate he had in some unnamed diner earlier in the day. His dirty gray running shoes were once white, now covered in two years of dirt and in dire need of replacing. The heel has been worn to the point of letting the sole go.

        His thoughts wander to his baby, both of them: The one he married straight out of high school, and the one growing inside of her belly. She changed her lifestyle the moment the doctor told them the good news, grinning from ear to ear. She stopped drinking and smoking cold turkey, Tucker stopped smoking and cut his drinking down.

        The company he works for has a decent benefit package. That benefit package kept his wife, the baby and himself healthy enough to continue their meager but happy existence. The package also allowed the doctor to take an Ultrasound and tell them that the baby, who kicked in the middle of the night and complained when Jenny was not feeling well, was a healthy and strong. A boy.

        But tonight his thoughts are not on the care package he pays for by driving in and out of different states on a regular basis, instead his thoughts are on his beautiful wife and how much she means to him. He may be a male in a redneck town but he has no problem telling Jenny how much she means to him on a daily basis (when he is around) just as he has no problem telling her how much she reminds him of a queen—Trailer Park Queen—every time he has a chance.

        At home he frequently wakes up in the middle of the night, instead of falling back into blessed unconsciousness where his worries seem to vanish, he watches her sleep. She looks so calm and beautiful, shedding an aura of pure innocence. Sometimes he watches her for only a few minutes, other times he watches her for hours. His hand may caress her soft red hair, pulling it away from her face, but never would he dare disturb her beauty sleep, even when the urge to wrap her into his arms and make love to her seems impossible to deny.

        He reaches up and wipes away a tear stinging his left eye thinking about the night their young nameless unborn baby had been conceived. It was their sixth anniversary since the day they were wed, the night was hot and humid. The type that makes your clothing glue uncomfortably to your body, even in the middle of the night.


        She had to work from eleven in the morning until seven at night; when she came home she found dinner was almost ready for her (a tender medium-rare roast with mashed potatoes, a small Caesar salad) along with a bottle of cheap (but verbose) red wine and two candles in the middle of the table. Playing in the background are a few repeating country songs that she liked, instead of the rock that normally played.

        She saw the table set up as neatly as he could produce it, and looked up into his blue eyes. The look of utterly unconditional love showed through the fatigue in her beautiful brown eyes. She walked up to him, wrapped her small and lean arms around him, leaned up and kissed him gently on the lips. He hugged her tenderly with strength, and just as she thought the night could not get any better it did.

        He brought her into their bedroom. On the bed was a simple white box for her. She complains weakly, not wanting him to spend a single cent that they didn’t need to. He dismissed her worries with a wave of his hand and told her to open the box. She did and uttered a gasp of delight carefully pulling out gorgeous black low cut strapless dressed exactly to her measurements.
“I love you.” He whispered. “I'll love you until the day I die.”

       
        He closes his eyes for a brief moment and utters a silent prayer to his Lord Jesus Christ, and asks him to get home safe and sound, quickly without incident. He needs to be home to see his baby being born. He needs to be there for his little unborn basket of joy. He has to be home for her.

        His body aches for her gentle touch, her caresses and the light scent of her body. He needs to feel her soft and smooth skin against his. He needs to smell the light scent of her sweat and taste the sweetness of her thick red lips. Closing his eyes, he protects himself from a shudder, swearing he could almost feel her lips pressing against the back of his neck.

        She was not his First, but she is his Only. Never in his life, bound to her through marriage and their very souls, has he ever thought of cheating on her. He is a handsome man and has been subtly asked to cheat on Jenny, never once has he taken the up the offer. Never would he.

        He prays to God every night that she stays with him, knowing she could attract the eyes of the richest men on Earth—almost every day a new pair of eyes settles on her with lusty thoughts behind their iris'--but his heart always sinks. He will always love her, up and beyond the day his bones are laid to their final rest, but he knows he cannot provide the life that she wanted. The life they wanted together.

        “I'm coming home to you.” He whispered to the dark and empty cabin of his truck. His voice is husky and tired. Again he wipes his stinging eyes. “I'm comin' home to you, girl.”
         
        His tired eyes drift down to the GPS unit attached to the dashboard on his right, directly between the steering wheel and the passenger seat. He can almost smell the her sweat from trips she accompanied him on, long before the pregnancy.

        Reaching into the compartment to his left, in the doorway, he brings out a package of red Marlboro's, flips open the top and pulls out a single white stick with the brown filter with white speckles. He reaches back down, keeping one eye on the road, and grabs his lighter. He lights the tip, puffing as a cloud of gray smoke drifts up to the roof, and drops both the lighter and the smokes back into the compartment. He smokes the cigarette in record time, opens the window and flicks the butt out onto the highway.


        He shakes his head and pulls over to the side of the highway, too tired to continue the long journey through utter blackness punctured only by the moon and his bright headlights. He pulls the keys out and tosses them into the passenger side seat and climbs into the back. He lays down on the bed, reaches down under the raised platform with an air mattress and pulls out a small bottle of whiskey. He glances at the clock, midnight, and quickly takes a sip before closing his eyes. He takes a few more sips, caps the bottle and slides it under his bunk and quickly falls asleep. In his dreams there is only Jenny, his young wife who won beauty contests in her teenage years.

        Not that he could know, Jenny has the front door open, hoping that sometime during the night he would walk through that door like an angel of mercy, scoop her up into his strong eyes and give her one of the warmest and strongest hugs and kisses that he can. She wants him to sweep her off her feet, carry her to the bed and make love to her, show her how much he loves her—to show him how much she loves him.


        He looks down at his HUD containing his speedometer, his fuel gage, oil pressure gage and a number of others, the least of which is the digital LCD clock with green numbers showing him the time. The clock says it is four AM and the speedometer shows his speed at a constant 95 miles per hour.

        Up ahead is a turn he has taken many times, beyond that are the lights of the last city he must pass before heading down the home stretch. Only a few more hours and he will be home in the arms of his goddess for a few hours before she must leave for work. He can't wait to kiss her, hug her and place his hand on her tummy to reassure the young unborn baby that his father is home, at least for a while.

        He blinks, glances around the area and looks through the rear view mirror seeing the turn he cannot quite remember making. He looks at the time, it is now 4:05am and shakes his head again. He reminds himself to keep his eyes on the road after realizing that he is thinking about his angel far too much for his own safety.

        He chuckles and smiles warmly to himself, not able to fully put his goddess completely out of mind, nor does he wish to. He feels his heart beating a little faster and feels his blood is a little hotter, freely admitting to himself that the thought of seeing his wife after a week of traveling is making him aroused. Beyond that he can't help but whisper to himself:

        “I swear to god that I'll love you to the day I die. I'm comin' home to you.”


        He slows right down, turning from the highway into the trailer park. His heart blasts against his chest, not quite believing that he is moments from home and minutes from seeing his Goddess in her full splendor. His whole body feels as if it is quaking, his pounding heart remembering every hour in the darkness of night he was away from her warmth. Her love.

        The trailer was bought and paid for, leaving her thinking that they had little money left over for the property rental fees. In all of his life he only told her one single lie: how much he actually made. He had a separate bank account with almost enough money for a down payment on a descent house. This run was supposed to be his last out-of-state delivery for a long time, perhaps the last run ever. He needed the money from this run to tip his savings over the brink before approaching her with the account balance and his plans.

        He takes the first right turn and sees the black and white highway trooper patrol car in front of their beige trailer he painted at the start of the summer. He stops directly behind the patrol car and looks into their home, kills the engine and leaps out from the cab, rounds the front and darts for the front door.

        He reaches out for the doorknob, closing his hand to grasp the object and watches as his hand simply glides through it. Taken by surprise, he can’t stop himself before phasing through the door like some sort of ghost into the trailer’s living room.

        Her lips are painted red and her face is turned up to his brother, Hank Williams. Her bloodshot brown eyes glow a bright red with her black mascara running down both glistening cheeks, stained with the marks of tears. All he can see in his Goddess'--Trailer Park Queen's—face is terrible pain and confusion. She is wearing her white button-up work shirt, with a slightly less obvious ketchup stain on her perky and petite right breast. Her white name tag, clipped to her left breast, is crooked.
“No, no, no…”

        Her hand creeps up over her red painted lips and her whole body shudders. She lets out a whimpered cry as his brother drops to his knees in front of her, never looking so weak. Her eyes close. He watches her break apart, falling on the old brown couch that almost looked patterned like tweed. She slides her hands over her face and horrifically screams in anguish and utter despair.

        Harry draws her into his arms and for the first time in nearly a decade Tucker heard him crying, but he can't look at him. His eyes are frozen on the decimated goddess in front of her. He wants to rush to her, take her into his arms and ask what is wrong, feeling every grief-stricken cry stabbing through his heart, ripping him to pieces from the inside out.
But he knows what is wrong.


        He keeps her photograph on his rear view mirror, stuck by a small piece of clear tape he hardly ever changes. It is a constant, always holding her picture up during his long, far from home travels.

        He glances from the photograph back to the road, just before the turn towards the home stretch of the brutal and long trip. It is his last trip, after seeing his Goddess off to work he must return to the office and give his boss the keys, at that point his boss will give him the keys to a new truck, a small in-city truck that would keep him as close to Jenny as he could possibly be. With the new truck and the new job comes new hours. His new hours are from five in the morning until three in the afternoon, five in the early evening if business is busier than usual. This suits him just fine.

        He hears something metallic under the cab snap. He slams on the breaks, dangerously close to the turn and feels his feet slam down on the floor, the breaks are gone. He eyes open wide and awake as he screams, wrenching on the steering wheel to the left, praying in his head under the unconscious cry for him to make the turn. The wheels are too slow to react.

        Much too slow.

        The metal railings turning with the edge of the road are no match for the huge vehicle pulling the heavy load. He heard the front of the cab slam into the metal railing and then heard the railing snap off the wooden mounts. The cab pushes off the road. Tucker can feel the sudden shift of gravity as he starts to feel the cab free fall towards the ground some twenty feet away, conscious of the fact that the truck turned enough for the cargo not to fall on directly on top of him. He can do nothing more than brace himself and stare at the picture of his soul mate before he crashes into the ground below.

        He feels only a moment of pain as the cab smashes inwards towards the back, crushing him from mid-chest downwards, breaking every bone in his fragile body. Death comes for him almost instantly, giving him time for only one single thought:

        I'm coming home for you. I'm coming home for you, girl.