Small, Irrelevant Matters

By Christopher Lee Johnson

Small, Irrelevant Matters is a collection of nine short stories that take place in rural Virginia. The stories touch on moments in the lives of farmers, college students, soldiers, foundry workers and store clerks.
They explore the space in-between life’s bigger events: car rides and lunch breaks where the simplest interaction, a brief gesture or a thoughtless remark, can change lives unexpectedly.
These quiet vignettes are snapshots of the way we treat each other, day to day, when a few quickly uttered words, which may be forgotten by one, can remain forever etched in the consciousness of another.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jan 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483421179

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Johnson

Copyright © 2014 Christopher Lee Johnson.

The Flea Market was previously published in Red Wheelbarrow Literary Magazine.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2118-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2117-9 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014919949

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 3/5/2015

Contents

Acknowledgements

Dedication

The Flea Market

How to Make an H

The Millstone Stretch

Center of the Room

Line of Holes

This Is Mine

An Arbitrary Engagement

Cutting Fallen Trees

Cowcatcher

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Mark Damon Puckett, Mary Boyes, and Gordon Ball for editing and advice.

Dedication

For Robert, David, Kevin, and Keith.

The Flea Market

A rusted barbed-wire fence separated the backyards from pasture that led into the Blue Ridge foothills. Honeysuckle vines massed in spots under the barbed wire and wound their way around the gray wooden fence posts that were cracked with age. Beside one of the houses, a smaller vine, filled with narrow white blossoms, crept along the red brick and reached toward one of the bedroom windows. A fan in the window pulled the sweet scent of honeysuckle into the room.

Curtis Jones lingered at the edge of sleep. His senses struggled for position as the smell of honeysuckle wrestled with the muffled footsteps that approached his door. He was pulling for the honeysuckle.

The footsteps gradually emerged from the fan noise and then paused when the bedroom door creaked open. Curtis pulled the blanket over his head in preparation, but he still winced as the overhead light came on.

Curtis.

He felt a nudge on his shoulder but kept his eyes closed.

Curtis. His father raised his voice, and Curtis felt the thick, calloused fingers tighten on his shoulder. Go ahead and get up.

Curtis nodded and pinched the sleep out of his eyes. Across the room, his older brother, Danny, was offering their father a litany of complaints.

Just get dressed and get out to the car, their father retorted and closed the door as he left the room.

He oughta just throw that crap away, Danny continued, scratching at his back as he reached for his clothes. Can’t stand to part with anything unless he’s gonna get something for it.

I know, Curtis recited.

That’s okay though, Danny said as he pointed to a box of comic books and Matchbox cars at the foot of his bed. I’m gonna get me something this time.

Me too, Curtis said with a smile and nodded toward a stack of comics and baseball cards on the edge of his desk.

*************************

Darkness surrounded the small carport, and a single, naked light bulb illuminated the scarred, red Mercury station wagon. Their father delivered newspapers to supplement his income as a metalworker at the local foundry. The sixty-mile paper route roamed through the rural areas of Winslow County at the eastern foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The dirt and gravel roads took a heavy toll on the car. The lower body was covered with small dents from rocks flung up by the tires, and the lower edges of the doors were rusted. During the late spring and summer months, the chipped paint was obscured by a perpetual coating of brown dust.

Their father finally darted through the kitchen doorway and set down a large box of shoes in front of Danny and Curtis.

We’re not taking those shoes again? Danny complained. Nobody wants that junk.

Their father glared at Danny. If someone wants ’em, they’re not junk. You just put it in the car, he said and returned to the house.

When the car was loaded, Curtis sat cramped in the backseat behind his father and watched as his brother balled up his jacket against the window and laid his head into it to go to sleep. The smell of burnt metal and newsprint, the smell of their dad, permeated everything in the car.

They followed the two-lane road that led away from the houses and dirt lots and headed southeast toward Danville and the North Carolina border. Dark silhouettes of trees and mailboxes shot past the windows as the car accelerated. The car rolled through a pothole, and Curtis smiled as Danny’s head snapped out of its jacket pillow and cracked against the window.

That was a big one, their father muttered and squinted into the darkness. Hope we didn’t lose anything.

Danny, now fully awake, rubbed the side of his head and turned toward his father. His stomach began to growl, and he hesitated before he spoke. Can we stop at McDonald’s?

Their father remained silent and leaned forward, concentrating on the road. Danny waited a few seconds and then continued. Dad…

Why didn’t you get a bowl of cereal before we left? he blurted out.

Well, you were telling us to hurry up…

You have any money?

No. I…

What happened to your allowance?

Allowance? Danny scoffed. It’s only five bucks.

Only!? Where you think that five bucks comes from?

Danny looked down at the floorboard.

You oughta be glad you get an allowance at all!

Danny sighed and stared out the side window.

Sunlight began to appear over the horizon, leaving behind the cool night breeze as Curtis dozed off to the engine’s gentle and familiar whining. The rising sun warmed away the dew, and the landscape began pulsing with a hint of the upcoming summer heat.

Curtis woke as they pulled up to the gate. A squat, bearded man wearing a cowboy hat signaled them to stop.

Five dollars, he said and scratched at his beard.

Their father gave the man a five-dollar bill, and on the man’s forearm the boys noticed the tattoo of a nude woman, with a snake draped around her neck and the name Carla curving below her feet. Danny looked back at Curtis and both of them grinned.

Y’all like that? the man said. Watch this here. The man held his forearm up to the window and began wiggling his fingers. Curtis and Danny watched as Carla’s breasts jumped up and down.

All right now. Their dad held up his hand, barely holding back a smile. Where can we park in here?

Closest spots are toward the end of the fourth row up there, he said, pointing. Near the screen.

Thanks. They drove through the gate, and a cloud of dust engulfed the car as they bounced over the crevices and ruts that lined the dirt lot.

I get up at four thirty, and it’s already crowded, their father mumbled. What a load of shit.

Again Danny looked back at Curtis, and the two of them grinned.

The market sat in a drive-in theater lot, dotted with speaker posts and surrounded by fields of alfalfa. The screen was flanked by latticework filled with honeysuckle. Their dad continued muttering about the crowd and eventually found a space between a van and an old red-and-white Ford pickup. An older gentleman was sitting in