A short-short story written for Daily Flash Fiction but submitted too late to be judged. |
Dimwitz Taylor opened the refrigerator in his ratty hous- trailer and peered inside seeing only an opened case of Keystone Light with two beers missing and a half bottle of ketchup. It was Saturday and Dimwitz was hungry. Dimwitz tossed the beer onto the passenger seat of his pickup and rattled down the dusty road toward the closest town which was twenty-five miles north, across the Oklahoma boarder. Actually, Dimwitz wasn’t his real name. His classmates had, for reasons unknown to Dimwitz, begun to call him that way back in high school. Dimwitz shoved the truck into low gear wishing that it would go faster than fifteen miles an hour. Alas, he had stripped all the other gears showing a sweet little gal from Amarillo how he could tow a trailer full of railroad ties up an eight percent grade without shifting down. He was on his third beer when he spotted a girl wearing cut-off jeans, a tank top and cowboy boots walking toward town. “Need a lift?” he offered as he pulled beside her. She looked him over skeptically before wrenching the door open and sliding in. “Can I have one of these?” fifteen year-old Donna Sue asked, holding up a Keystone. “Well now, that depends,” Dimwitz said. “How old are you?” “Twenty one.” She popped the tab. Much later, as they crossed the boarder, with only five beers left Donna Sue pointed to a wooded spot and said, “Pull over there. I have to pee.” As she slipped into the woods Dimwitz was relieving himself on the rear tire of the truck when the sheriff’s patrol car pulled up. When Dimwitz woke up, surrounded by bars, he asked, “How did I get here?” ”Drunk driving, indecent exposure and transporting a minor over a state line. That’s how.” |