So...guilty as charged. It's not Friday yet again. This time though, I can blame it on the internet, which was not working for me at all yesterday. This is like the time I was writing ‘Anna Maria Island’ on a shirt in permanent ink for a friend. I have been known to only spell Anna with one n (terrible speller you see) So I made sure to write two n’s priding myself in the fact that I remembered, when I finished the shirt I looked back to see that I had forgotten the a in Anna…….. yup. I finally get a story an entire WEEK in advance and it still comes out late. I’m so ashamed…. Let’s get on to the story shall we? Today’s story is by Carre Gardner who lives in Portland Maine, she is a nurse there and you can check out her blog
HERE
She is a brilliant writer and I’m sure you’ll love it,
Grey Goose
by Carre Gardner
Forty dollars will buy Leroy ten years in the slammer. That’s how long he’s held my sister prisoner, smacking her around and taking her money; locking her out of the house; making her rub Nivea cream into his fat, sweaty feet when he comes home from work. She’s done her time; it’s his turn now. Forty dollars will purchase my sister a decade of peace: that's only four dollars a year; less than three cents per day. It’s literally a small price to pay for freedom.
Forty dollars is the cost of a bottle of Grey Goose Pineapple Vodka, Leroy’s favorite. I buy it on Friday, and put it in the freezer overnight, so it will be good and cold by morning. On Saturday, I pack it in the Coleman cooler, in the bottom with the ice.
It’s Grammie’s birthday, and we are celebrating with a picnic at Portland Head Light, as we have done every ninth of July for the last seventeen years. After the hamburgers, and before the cake, I bring out the bottle of Grey Goose and pour small measures into paper cups. We drink a toast to the old girl. Then, as I knew he would, Leroy starts in on the rest of the bottle.
It’s a long, warm day, with a hot sun and a stiff breeze blowing in off the water, stirring up a light chop among the lobster boats and buoys in the bay. The nieces and nephews play tag with the waves, which are aggressive today, chasing them back up the sand, nipping at their heels no matter how fast they run. The tide is at its ebb: it is a good day to die. A good day to start living.
The sun is low in the sky before my sister begins carting the chairs and coolers back to the car. Leroy lingers at a picnic table, over the last of the vodka, until the shadows, even his, stretch long and thin across the grass behind us.
“Come on,” I say, “Let’s take a walk along the cliffs.”
Leroy protests, but I pick up the bottle of Grey Goose and wave it in front of him. Like the dumb animal he is, he hoists himself up and follows the carrot.
“I’ll stay here with the kids,” my sister says.
“Yes,” agrees my wife, “let them stay here and play a little longer.”
The rest of us start off, Grammie shuffling along on my wife’s shoulder, pausing often to catch her breath. Leroy stumbles behind them, and I take his arm to steady him. There is no hurry. We stop at an isolated point, looking out over the Atlantic, its waves gilded and roseate in the light of the setting sun. We might be seabirds, sitting here, poised to push off from the edge and drop into the air, the cold wind currents bearing us up, saving us from the surf pounding and boiling below.
“Let’s get a picture,” I say. “We’ll take turns posing with the birthday girl.” I maneuver Leroy into position, and he drapes an arm like a ham across Grammie’s frail shoulders.
“Come on now,” I prompt him, “give her a kiss.”
Automatically, he obeys. For an instant, a trick of the light renders the sweet gesture menacing. But an instant is all my wife needs to snap the camera shutter before I step forward and push.
Her body is surprisingly soft against my palms. I thought she would fight death with some inborn animal instinct. Instead, one moment she is there, and the next there is only empty air, and a gull swooping onto the rock where she was standing. She does not even scream.
I look at Leroy. “You pushed her,” I say.
“I did?” He is stupid at first, foggy, then his face clears, panic spreading across it like a slow flush. “I didn’t mean to push her!”
“No, it was an accident. They’ll call it manslaughter, not murder. You’ll probably do about ten years.” I hand him the bottle of Grey Goose, the last inch sloshing around in the bottom like eddies in a tidal pool. He swallows it with a long, desperate shudder and a belch. In the morning, in the dim light of a jail cell, he won’t recall any of this. My sister’s share of Grammie’s fortune should be enough to cover his gambling debts. It’s as good a motive as any to kill.
My wife tucks her camera carefully into the pocket of her windbreaker, and gives it a pat. “I think,” she says, “that we had better call 911.”
I gaze across the water to where the sinking sun is painting the sky like a bruise. Ninety years is a good, long life for anyone, I think.
Beside me, my brother-in-law blubbers senselessly, reeking of pineapple. Over the bay, the gulls are wheeling, shrieking and scolding, already beginning to take an interest in the new thing lying on the rocks below.
Do you write short stories or poems of any sort (really anything written by you other than your grocery list, unless you think your grocery list is really that interesting and if so by all means send it in)? Want to send one in? I’m always interested in reading new things :D
Email me at sacohayes@gmail.com
68. Grey Goose
