Keepsake
by Elizabeth Rosen
Exactly how I came to be beating the shit out of a fiberglass pig by the side of the highway in the middle of the night is a long story. Suffice it to say the pig was named for my husband’s ex-wife.
When the police cruiser rolled up slowly behind my parked car, it crept over the gravel bits with a stealthy sound. Its blue-and-reds flashed silently into the summer night, lighting up the cornstalks in the field behind the pig.
I had exhausted myself and was sitting cross-legged in the scrappy grass verge with my head in my hands, somewhere between panting and hyperventilating. I must not have looked like much of a threat because I heard the door of the cruiser open and the booted footsteps of the state trooper come in my direction.
In my misery, I didn’t bother to look up. All I could think about was how much I hated my husband’s ex-wife, how much I hated that pig sitting on the highway outside of our little town, a smiling, Pepto-Bismol-colored statue known locally as Maggie in honor of the honky-tonk BBQ place two towns away that it was an advertisement for. A pig that my step-daughters had yelled “Hi, Mom!” at every time we drove by the first year I had them because their mother shared the same name.
The cruiser’s headlights were mostly blocked by my beat-up Eddie Bauer Bronco, a car that we just kept replacing pieces of because my husband and I had a soft spot for the vehicle that we’d made out in like teenagers in heat, even though we were adults ending our first marriages at the time we met.
Boots flipped on a flashlight and played it over me. I didn’t move. “Everything ok, Ma’am?”
I snorted. Let go of the pig ear clenched in my fist and let it roll onto the ground in front of me in answer.
The flashlight moved off of me and onto the decimated pig. Before dropping my baseball bat, I had managed to knock the pig entirely off its foundation. Four jagged fiberglass hooves were still attached to the concrete, but the pig itself lay cracked into powdery pieces all around, smashed and stomped into the idea of a pig, identifiable by the perky snout that had come to rest pointing up at the corn, and by the rounded backside with the cute, curly tail I hadn’t gotten to. I hated that adorable fucking tail. As soon as I caught my breath, I intended to smash it into oblivion.
Boots swung the light back to me. Maintaining his distance, he crouched down so he was at my level. I put my hand up to shield my eyes from the light, and he angled the light down slightly so it wasn’t blinding me.
“Are you hurt?” Boots asked.
I began to cry, hard. Was I hurt? Was I fucking hurt? Were my girls? Was my husband? I shook my head violently, a dog trying to drive away unrelenting flies.
“We were doing fine,” I told him through the tears. Boots mostly looked concerned, though he kept one hand resting on the back strap of his holstered handgun. He gave a small nod of encouragement. “Better than fine,” I said. “She was gone. Out of our lives. And the girls were doing – are doing – great.”
I started hiccupping. Then I started coughing when I sucked in spit at the same time as hiccupping. I was a fucking mess. The pig was a fucking mess. The future – I could see it stretching out in front of us – it was going to be a fucking mess.
It took a minute, but when I caught my breath, I said, “And here she comes, back again. A force of fucking chaos in everyone’s life after being gone for three years.” I couldn’t even meet his eyes when I said it, couldn’t even believe the thing was true. “She re-filed for custody.”
The flashlight wasn’t pointed at me anymore. It was pointed at the ground between us, a white blaze like you tell scary stories around on a camping trip. The hiccups had subsided. The tears were drying. I drew a deep, deep breath, held it for a count of five, and let it out slowly.
“I understand,” Boots said, rising to his feet. He shone the light over the broken pig. “You’re going to have to pay for this.” He offered me a hand to help me up.
I rose wearily, brushed myself off. I surveyed the damage as I pulled my messy pony tail out, swiped the hair that had come loose back into place, and tied it up again.
“You know where the station is?” Boots asked. He stepped aside to let me get to my car. “I’ll follow you.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. I leaned down and picked up the ear off the ground.
I was going to drill a hole through that fucking thing and hang it from my rear-view mirror.
Colorwise, Elizabeth Rosen is an autumn. She mourns the loss of Tab and still wants her MTV. Her stories have appeared in journals such as the North American Review, Baltimore Review, Pithead Chapel, and Flash Frog, and been nominated for the Pushcart, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net awards. Find more of her work at www.thewritelifeliz.com.
by Elizabeth Rosen
Exactly how I came to be beating the shit out of a fiberglass pig by the side of the highway in the middle of the night is a long story. Suffice it to say the pig was named for my husband’s ex-wife.
When the police cruiser rolled up slowly behind my parked car, it crept over the gravel bits with a stealthy sound. Its blue-and-reds flashed silently into the summer night, lighting up the cornstalks in the field behind the pig.
I had exhausted myself and was sitting cross-legged in the scrappy grass verge with my head in my hands, somewhere between panting and hyperventilating. I must not have looked like much of a threat because I heard the door of the cruiser open and the booted footsteps of the state trooper come in my direction.
In my misery, I didn’t bother to look up. All I could think about was how much I hated my husband’s ex-wife, how much I hated that pig sitting on the highway outside of our little town, a smiling, Pepto-Bismol-colored statue known locally as Maggie in honor of the honky-tonk BBQ place two towns away that it was an advertisement for. A pig that my step-daughters had yelled “Hi, Mom!” at every time we drove by the first year I had them because their mother shared the same name.
The cruiser’s headlights were mostly blocked by my beat-up Eddie Bauer Bronco, a car that we just kept replacing pieces of because my husband and I had a soft spot for the vehicle that we’d made out in like teenagers in heat, even though we were adults ending our first marriages at the time we met.
Boots flipped on a flashlight and played it over me. I didn’t move. “Everything ok, Ma’am?”
I snorted. Let go of the pig ear clenched in my fist and let it roll onto the ground in front of me in answer.
The flashlight moved off of me and onto the decimated pig. Before dropping my baseball bat, I had managed to knock the pig entirely off its foundation. Four jagged fiberglass hooves were still attached to the concrete, but the pig itself lay cracked into powdery pieces all around, smashed and stomped into the idea of a pig, identifiable by the perky snout that had come to rest pointing up at the corn, and by the rounded backside with the cute, curly tail I hadn’t gotten to. I hated that adorable fucking tail. As soon as I caught my breath, I intended to smash it into oblivion.
Boots swung the light back to me. Maintaining his distance, he crouched down so he was at my level. I put my hand up to shield my eyes from the light, and he angled the light down slightly so it wasn’t blinding me.
“Are you hurt?” Boots asked.
I began to cry, hard. Was I hurt? Was I fucking hurt? Were my girls? Was my husband? I shook my head violently, a dog trying to drive away unrelenting flies.
“We were doing fine,” I told him through the tears. Boots mostly looked concerned, though he kept one hand resting on the back strap of his holstered handgun. He gave a small nod of encouragement. “Better than fine,” I said. “She was gone. Out of our lives. And the girls were doing – are doing – great.”
I started hiccupping. Then I started coughing when I sucked in spit at the same time as hiccupping. I was a fucking mess. The pig was a fucking mess. The future – I could see it stretching out in front of us – it was going to be a fucking mess.
It took a minute, but when I caught my breath, I said, “And here she comes, back again. A force of fucking chaos in everyone’s life after being gone for three years.” I couldn’t even meet his eyes when I said it, couldn’t even believe the thing was true. “She re-filed for custody.”
The flashlight wasn’t pointed at me anymore. It was pointed at the ground between us, a white blaze like you tell scary stories around on a camping trip. The hiccups had subsided. The tears were drying. I drew a deep, deep breath, held it for a count of five, and let it out slowly.
“I understand,” Boots said, rising to his feet. He shone the light over the broken pig. “You’re going to have to pay for this.” He offered me a hand to help me up.
I rose wearily, brushed myself off. I surveyed the damage as I pulled my messy pony tail out, swiped the hair that had come loose back into place, and tied it up again.
“You know where the station is?” Boots asked. He stepped aside to let me get to my car. “I’ll follow you.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. I leaned down and picked up the ear off the ground.
I was going to drill a hole through that fucking thing and hang it from my rear-view mirror.
Colorwise, Elizabeth Rosen is an autumn. She mourns the loss of Tab and still wants her MTV. Her stories have appeared in journals such as the North American Review, Baltimore Review, Pithead Chapel, and Flash Frog, and been nominated for the Pushcart, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net awards. Find more of her work at www.thewritelifeliz.com.