When you are a writer by action if not by trade, you continually write. Sometimes you only write in your mind, but if you are lucky you will find yourself near a keyboard or pad and pen when a story begins to form. Most of these things end up in a “random scenes” folder or a drawer in your desk. Something you will get back to “when you have the time.” Below is a story called “inches” I wrote some years ago after a real life tragedy struck a small town.
—-
Mirna looked up from her cash register and saw the flashing lights of the squad car blocking the intersection. She took a quick look around the store and realized there were no customers in the isles, so it was safe to slip outside and pay her respects. Today was the kind of day which made her regret her role in life. There were very few of these days she knew, but when they happened her heart felt like it went through a shredder.
She had never been a beauty or considered svelt. Mirna was as Plain Jane as a woman could come yet she was trust worthy and the kind of person people relied on. Her one and only ambition from youth had been to be a mom, but that opportunity never presented itself. Oh, she had tried a few times in High School, despite the shame it would have caused back then. Despite having lived her entire life without going out on a single date, Mirna and her girl friends had attended some of the parties, although they were called “keggers” during that time. She had considered it a double curse in life that the beautiful girls could get pregnant if a guy sneezed in the same room with them, yet no matter how many guys with beer goggles she did the deed with no seed ever took. She had to settle for being an aunt and working here.
Working here really wasn’t “settling” in her mind. She started here in High School. It was cool to have a job during school, especially since the school had open lunch hour and many kids came to the station for their daily fix of junk food. She did take some business and management classes at the local Junior College after graduation, but all the time she kept her job. Around the time got her Associate Degree the owner sold the station to a chain. The chain sold it to a bigger chain a few years later. That chain went into hock with its fuel supplier so now the station was owned by a multi-national energy company. Each new owner had allowed Mirna to keep her years of service.
She had been through more regional and district managers than she could count. Every one of those fresh-out-of-college kids thought they were going to set the world on fire and completely change how her station did business. Every one of them either got fired or went to another company within eighteen months. She had managed this station for more than thirty years and had more seniority than anyone in upper management or the board of directors. Every time a complaint went up the chain from one of the newbies, it was the last thing they did working for the company. Her station had never went a week without making money and the only reason it didn’t make more money was the restriction on fuel storage.
There were two stations in this small town. The second had come along years later when the town fathers thought a little competition would help. Of course, once they approved a second station someone thought about the fact the town was less than a mile square and just how big of a blast motor fuel could make. That led to the storage limit regulation. Mirna really didn’t care. She thought the limit would go away each time both stations went dry over holiday weekends despite daily deliveries, but so far, the ordinance stood.
Funny she was thinking about that now. Probably had something to do with the fact she was standing by the tank filler caps watching the cars go past. Tears leaked out from behind her glasses. Some people waved to her and she waved back. Yes, she could have attended the funeral, but the kids who worked for her now were much closer to this boy. Mirna remembered when the boy’s parents were his age, trying to buy beer and cigarettes. The optimism that only a child could have, believing in a town this size they could lie about their age. She chuckled despite her tears. “The good kind of mischief” she thought.
No, today wasn’t brought on by mischief, drinking, drugs, or any other kind of malady one saw on the news. This town may be less than a mile square, but it had churches for three different religions. This town turned a blind eye to the teenage crowd having a weekend beer party, it also turned a blind eye to whatever the police did on those rare occasions their teenagers were caught doing something other than drinking and trying to cross home plate in the back of a car. Every one of them knew when to say when. They also knew that if they couldn’t wake up one of their parents to come and get them, the police would do it, no questions asked. Lastly, they knew their classmates wouldn’t hesitate to call the cops if someone was even trying to get behind the wheel hammered. No, it had been more than twenty years since this town had laid to rest a teenager where alcohol was involved, and the last time the kid wasn’t even drunk. He had worked a long day putting in drainage tile and fell asleep driving home without even finishing his first, and generally only, after work beer.
When this town had to bury a child, it was always a freak accident. Kicked by a cow, caught in a PTO shaft, crushed in a grain bin, these were the types of things which took young life around here. Normally. Today the town was laying to rest a sixteen year old who drowned swimming the river. Not alone. Not his first time. During a drought when the river was the lowest it had been in decades. The boy had swum that river countless times to his relatives house on the other side. On this day there were even other family members on multiple boats fishing just a few yards from where he went down.
Mirna came out of her thoughts in time to wave to the bus driver. Her car was following the procession out to the grave. They shared a pain today. Few people thought about those in menial jobs who became attached to their kids. The bus drivers. The gas station attendants. People who saw these kids every day. Sometimes they even knew more about them than their parents. It was a special kind of hurt. Not the kind of hurt a mother would feel losing a child, but the distance between the two could be measured in inches.
