Just Drive

By: Ken Noreika

Date: 2017-03-09

Genre: Short Stories

The car whispers through the humid night and past the bright lights of the old yacht club and the yawning black of the bay. The road grows narrow and the asphalt becomes wavy as they drive among tired sand dunes crowned by clumps of dried-out sawgrass.

“I didn't know there was anything past the marina,” she says.

He flicks his cigarette out the window. “Keep driving,” he says.

The broken asphalt yawns and crumbles into a cul-de-sac with a port-a-potty to the right and a massive jetty to the left. A long pier runs alongside the jetty and out into the water. The couple get out of the car and walk onto the pier, their footsteps echoing in the open space beneath it.

“It's on fire,” she says, pointing at the moon, hanging large and low like over-ripe fruit dangling on the lowest branch of heaven.

“It's almost like you can reach right out and grab it,” he says, holding up his hand as if to pluck it from the sky.

“Would you give it to me?”

“I don't know,” he says. “What's it worth?”

“Are we negotiating?”

“Aren't we always?” he says.

“Is that what it all comes down to?” she says.

“I didn't make the rules.”

“So,” she says, kicking a stone down the pier, “it's a game?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you're cute,” she says and she turns to him and kisses him on the neck.

“Cute,” he says. “Thanks.”

A loud shriek comes from the nearby dunes and is abruptly silenced.

“What was that?” she asks, grabbing his arm and pulling him closer.

“I don't know,” he says, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a pint of Dewar's and unscrewing the cap. “But I'd say it wasn't cute.” He takes a hit from the bottle and passes it to her.

She takes a sip and winces, then wipes her lips with the back of her hand.

The moon casts its reflection on the water, where it looks less like rotting fruit or fire and more like blood.