Novel Treatments / Little Woods: April Modern Day Part 2

April
Modern Day
2

Domino Effect

     From the back seat, Jill McCallum wondered how the new car smell could linger in the five-year-old, green Taurus driven by her best friend, Shashi Raj. Her other best friend, Trish Pilsner, sat shotgun and seemed oblivious to any sensory input beyond the sound of her own chirping banter.
     “Did you see that tight body on Bobby Robinson?” Trish tipped her head back over the passenger seat so that her long blond hair dangled freely behind her; then she reached out to place her right hand flat on the dashboard. “What a dream.”
     “Yeah, but hasn’t he been stuck in pre-Algebra for the last two years?” Shashi’s eyebrows came together in disapproval.
     Trish pouted. “You’re such a snob. I don’t need him for his mind. What do you think about him, Jill?”
     “About what?”
     “Bobby Robinson, you space.”
     “He’s OK.” Jill returned her gaze to the window.
     “All right, time to spill it,” Shashi said while she dropped the heal of her hand like a gavel on the top of the steering wheel. “We’ve waited long enough. What’s the story with your dad? Our parents read the paper you know. We’re your best friends, and we don’t know more than our parents?”
     Jill did appreciate her friends’ support. Each girl had a parent who was out of work, but Trish and Shashi were lucky to have one parent still employed. Shashi’s father was a laid-off electrical engineer who specialized in designing cell phone circuitry. Shashi’s mother was a physician—less vulnerable to overseas competition. Trish’s family carbon-copied Shashi’s: an unemployed Java-programmer mother and a solidly employed lawyer dad. But as far as Jill knew, Shashi’s and Trish’s parents still walked on the right side of the law.
     “Look, my dad didn’t hurt that woman. The man attacked Dad, and Dad fought back. Then Dad left. The other man beat up that woman so he could blame the whole thing on my dad. My dad’s lawyer is going to straighten things out in court. When this is over, Dad said that the real story probably won’t make the paper.”
     Shashi and Trish glanced at each another. “Yeah, we figured it was something like that,” Trish said. “When will it go to court?”
     Jill’s eyes began to glaze with fresh-formed tears. “I don’t know.”
     Trish turned in her seat with a broad smile. “Hey, I saw a really cute outfit at Aeropostale. It’ll look great on you, Jill. You have to buy it.”
     Moments later, the girls marched, in lockstep, three abreast through the busy mall. Their formation made navigating the walkways more hazardous for everyone, but it prevented an intolerable state where one of them walked behind the others. When they arrived at their destination, the outfit looked good on Jill, so she bought it and carefully folded her receipt. The purchase made her feel better.
     “Let me know if you’re going to return that,” Trish whispered, leering with spoof jealousy. “Hey, let’s go to the food court and make fun of people.”
     Underneath the surface of a perfectly normal mall experience, Jill conspired to delay her arrival home. The pending confrontation over her new outfit meant nothing to her. There was only so much room in that house, and Jill had reached the end of her patience with both of her parents. She loved them, to be sure, but she was so angry with them that she wanted to scream. Her mom’s constant state of chemical bliss denied Jill even the outlet of a decent argument. I heard Mom tell someone on the phone that Dad lost a lot of money gambling. Now he’s getting into fights in parking lots? Please.
     Shashi pointed with just a subtle nod of her head. “Hey, there’s Domino Hustel. He’s in my history class. He got suspended and they’re not going to let him go out for hockey next year because of drugs or something. I heard he wasn’t good enough for varsity anyway.”
     “Sara Johnson told me that Coach found drugs in his locker,” Trish said. “She thought he was going to fall back on grades for sure this year anyway, and he might drop out of school totally. He has a job hanging drywall with his cousin, or something dreamy like that.”
     All three girls giggled.
     Shashi looked at her watch. “Oh my gosh, it’s a quarter to five. My mom’s going to kill me. We need to go.”
     They raced through the throngs on the mall’s ramps, weaved around hapless widow shoppers, burst through the wide bank of glass doors to the outside, and sprinted over white-striped blacktop to arrive at the car.
     “Can you drop me at the convenience store?” Jill asked, breathless.
     “Fine with me,” Shashi said. “It’s closer to home than your house.” She stopped across three empty spaces at the quick stop, Jill jumped out of the car, and the Taurus sailed away.
     Jill liberated an iced tea from a long, multi-door cooler, paid, and walked to a park where she rocked on a swing and sipped her beverage whose syrupy coolness made her giddy with the memory of a happy time at the Dairy Queen—her mom pregnant with Cyndi, Tom toddling around in diapers, and her dad’s arms filled with sundaes like a proud hunter returning with hard-won sustenance for his tribe.
     “Hi, don’t I know you?” said a voice behind her.
     Turning her head to the left, she saw a Mercury Marauder pull away. Turning her head to the right, she found Domino Hustel waiting for her reply. “Yeah, we both go to St. Charles High.”
     “Do you like it?” Domino grimaced.
     “It’s OK.” Jill straightened her legs to push her swing and leaned back to horizontal. “What’s your deal, though? Are you going out for hockey next year?”
     Domino blushed. “Probably not. I might not go back at all. I got a job and need to earn money. School just gets in the way. I can learn that stuff on my own. I can get a GED if I ever need a diploma.”
     “Plus, you got caught with drugs?”
     “Not drugs.”
     “I think you should go back to school.”
     “Maybe.” Domino allowed a long pause. “What are you doing tonight? Some friends of mine are having a party in Batavia. We could grab a bite to eat and go together, if you want.”
     Jill’s first instinct was to decline, but then she had to either go home or sit alone in the park. “Yeah, I’ll go.” She rose and brushed off her plaid skirt, wondering with some embarrassment about how her school cloths would go over at a real party. Domino escorted Jill to an old Focus. She saw the wear in the tires and doubted the car’s roadworthiness but dropped into the passenger seat anyway. Domino pulled away too quickly.
     He’s showing off, Jill thought. Why am I impressed?
     “Domino. Is that your real name?”
     “No. It’s a nickname. My real name’s Sam.”
     “Sam’s better than Domino.”
     “Both work.”
     “I’ll call you Sam.” she ran her finger over the dashboard. “Why do they call you Domino?”
     “In the sixth grade I played dominos pretty regularly with the guys. I won money at it. Since my last name is Hustel, the guys called me ‘hustle’ at first. Then someone said ‘Domino Hustle’ and finally it just became ‘Domino.’”
     “Oh. Do you still gamble?” Jill transferred a bundle of anger from her father to Sam.
     “I play with my cousin sometimes, but the stakes are small. Neither one of us can afford to lose much.” Sam curled his lips inward and raised his eyebrows in a display of embarrassment.
     Jill exhaled sharply.
     They stopped for a taco, so bland it would have killed a real Mexican person through boredom and despair. But the meal energized Jill, and Sam once again impressed her by wedging his car into a tiny space at the center of a line of other parallel-parked, early-model cars at the curb of a sleepy neighborhood stocked by dull, yellow bungalows.
     Cigarette smoke enveloped the couple as it escaped through the door of the home that they entered. “Domino! You made it!” someone called out. Then a general buzz welcomed him.
     “You guys, this is Jill,” Sam said.
     “Hi, Jill.” a number of the partiers hailed in loose unison.
     The house was small—one story with a kitchen, living area, bathroom, and bedroom. As Jill followed Sam though the backdoor to the patio, she noticed a stairway to a dungeon-like basement. More partiers orbited a grill and a keg of beer in the backyard, so Sam had to announce Jill again. She could not remember a single name from the introductions.
     “Beer.” The keg-sentry held clear, plastic cups, filled with foaming gold liquid, in meaty hands at the ends his fully extended arms.
Sam took both cups and passed one to Jill.
     “What’s that smell?” Jill asked, crinkling her nose at sweet, high-pitched fumes.
     “Pot. Do you want some?”
     “Noooo.”
     The music and conversation grew progressively louder until the keg sentry warned, “Cops are here.”
     Sam snatched the cup out of Jill’s hand and dumped it into the grass. “Let’s go.”
     They flowed with the underage crowd to the house next door. Jill felt fiendishly criminal as she peeked between curtains to watch uniformed officers prowl the backyard extracting identification from those bellwether souls that remained outside to assuage the suspicions of the diligent authorities. Finally the danger passed, and at ten o’clock, the party broke up. Sam and Jill were on the road again.
     “Did you have a good time?” The glow of street lights swept over Sam’s face in a way that turned his words to velvet.
     “You have nice friends. Thanks for taking me.”
     “My pleasure. Want to go back to my place for a while?”
     “No!” Jill’s eyes went wide. “Don’t you live with your parents?”
     “My cousin and I share a place now.”
     “How old are you?”
     “Seventeen.”
     “I should go home.” Jill looked at a row of florescent signs over a local bar and wondered why the world seemed so much more exciting at night.
     “Where do you live?”
     Jill directed Sam to her house. She wrote her cell phone number on an empty fast-food bag, tore it away, and placed it prominently on the console as an offering of Trojan proportions.
     Sam waited as she climbed stone steps to the high white arch that framed the entrance to the McCallum home. When she pulled on the brass handle, the entire house erupted in lights and sirens. Jill screamed, and Sam’s car disappeared behind a residue of squealing tires down the nearly-deserted, tree-lined street.

     Lloyd bolted down the stairs, gun in hand. Jill glared at him like he was from outer space, and he turned back to see Marilyn, Tom, and Cyndi in a picket line at the top of the stairs. He reached for the alarm panel next to the front door and entered a code, not bothering to call the security company because the police were already on the way. In the comparative silence, Lloyd splayed his hands inches from Jill’s shoulders and demanded, “Where have you been, young lady,” while Marilyn guided Tom and Cyndi back to their bedrooms.
     “I was out with my friends!”
     “What friends? Who?”
     “You think I want to come back here when I’ve got someplace better to go?”
     “You smell like a bar. Have you been smoking?”
     “No! Leave me alone!” Jill ran upstairs and slammed the door to her room.
     Lloyd heard her flop on her bed. Still expecting the police, he did not follow. At last, a squad car stopped in front of the house, lights strobing, and he greeted the uniformed officers that hustled to the door under the weight and clatter of full utility belts. “Come on in, guys. Sorry about this. My sixteen-year-old daughter was out of the house, and I didn’t know.” Lloyd sighed. “The alarm went off when she came in. She didn’t know how to enter the house with the alarm on.”
     “We still have to check the house,” one of the officers said.
     “I understand.”
     Two police officers walked from room to room until they pronounced satisfaction that the house was secure.
     Lloyd signed a report that lay flat on a thick-as-a-novel, stainless-steel clipboard, and then he activated the alarm behind the departing police before entering Jill’s room, pressing the door closed, and observing in silence.
     Marilyn sat on the bed with Jill, talking in the low, soothing voice of a mother with a sick baby. “OK, but I want you to stay at home this weekend. Consider yourself grounded until you can tell us the truth about what you were doing tonight. I’ll talk to Shashi’s and Trish’s mothers tomorrow to see when they got home.” Marilyn got up, walked to Lloyd, placed her hand on his arm, and guided him out of the room. Jill shoved her head into her pillow and sobbed.
     Downstairs, each parent manned a battle station within the space of the kitchen. Marilyn said, “This is my fault. I should’ve known that my own daughter was not in the house tonight. Imagine if someone had kidnapped her. How long would we have gone without noticing?”
     “Mar, this is not your fault. She’s never done anything like this before.”
     “She’s never been kidnapped before, either.” she fought tears. “We should have been waiting up. At seven we should have been calling her friends’ homes. At nine we should have called the police. When she walked in that door, the only alarm she heard should have been from our mouths.”
     “I know, I know.” He placed his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I should have noticed too. I guess I’ve been giving everyone space because I’m embarrassed for making such a mess of things.”
     “You should be embarrassed.” She punched him lightly, let go a short burst of laughter, and gently stroked the almost-healed wound on his forehead.
     “Did you take your meds tonight?”
     “I forgot—no, that’s not right. I intentionally skipped them. I needed to get off that nonsense. You and the kids need me at my best, and I haven’t been myself since I started with the medication. I’ll call the doctor tomorrow and tell him what I’ve decided. I think I just need to stop worrying about my lost job and start worrying about my family.”
     “Do that and you’ll be on medication again in no time.”
     Lloyd and Marilyn maintained their embrace as they walked toward the stairs. Lloyd stopped at the front door to double-check the alarm system. Then they climbed the stairs.
     “Do you think it’s a boyfriend?” Marilyn asked.
“Most likely. If she was out with Shashi or Trish, then maybe the boy was with one of them and Jill was just a chaperone.”
     “Let’s hope.”
     “Good thing I bought a gun.”

A black Mercury Marauder sat a block away on the McCallum’s street. The driver fired up the car’s engine, turned on its headlights, and drove slowly away.

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Reviews

June 24, 2007

carolinahermit

No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
298	72.8% (162 votes)	36.8%

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46	M	Lexington, SC	October 24

carolinahermit reviewed Version 2 - Read 100%% of the Item

So your western is also a bit of a ghost story-cool

I hope there’s a reason both Marilyn and Lloyd experience these spiritual connections-either blood descendants or living in area of original village/burial ground-just random raises too many questions

Are they Indian casinos?

Confrontation-not confrontation

How come your past isn’t as detailed in personal body language? Did you want it to read more like a history lesson? It’s really good here, as are the descriptions and reflected emotions

Constant state of chemical bliss-nice

And sternly observing in silence-or not

Fought back tears

This part came off much more polished to me-very good

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June 25, 2007

by campb26593

No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
320	83.6% (116 votes)	26.6%

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45	M	Elk Grove Village, IL	November 11

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There is a distinct difference in style between modern day and past stories; partly because, as you say, I’m delivering a history lesson in the 1833 story. Readers tend to prefer one side or the other, which is kind of a strange dynamic to deal with. The point of the story is very simple: that history repeats itself. People were displaced by global change in 1833 and they are being displaced with global change today. The trappings that surround the people change, but the despair and need for good decision making remain basic to human beings who are caught in the tides of their changing world. Nope, they aren’t relatives. No blood connection, only spiritual kinship due to the similarity in their trauma. The casinos on the Fox River are not Indian-owned but simply serve as a vehicle for Lloyd McCallum’s existential crisis just as alcohol served as a vehicle for Mud Paw’s. In the beginning of the 1833 story, Wateska ponders a young, lightning-scarred oak tree near the village. Then, the reader is shown the same, but older, lightning-scarred oak tree in the modern day in the McCallum’s backyard in St. Charles, Illinois. So, the two families do share a geographical connection. Thanks for your review.

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June 24, 2007

chicklitrules

No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
53	60.0% (10 votes)	57.1%

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35	F	United Kingdom	February 08

chicklitrules reviewed Version 2 - Read 100%% of the Item

Hi – I particularly liked this; sometimes when you see its a youth piece its easy to switch of but you kept my attention throughout. I thought you had just the right balance of factual information along with some good dry wit, my favourite being the following comment £They stopped for a taco, so bland it would have killed a real Mexican person through boredom and despair.”

I am keen to see the next chapter, as you can tell there is definitely something strange going on in the background with Jill’s family. Most teens would identify with her coming from a dysfunctional family and i think this would be a popular read.

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No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
320	83.6% (116 votes)	26.6%

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45	M	Elk Grove Village, IL	November 11

June 23, 2007

Rylan

No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
143	82.6% (46 votes)	19.5%

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19	M	Jefferson City, MO	February 24

Rylan reviewed Version 2 - Read 100%% of the Item

This was a good story, I enjoyed reading it. Thank you for posting. You have a really good way with words, and I enjoy reading what you’re writing, even if the content isnt particularly exciting. You did a good job with characterization, I could really get into your characters.

—Rylan