Our first assignment is about imagery.  We are to take a bumper sticker we’ve seen, describe the car, the person, what we find in the car etc. etc.  Here goes, for your reading pleasure, my first (since high school) creative writing endeavor!

I’m Married….Not Dead

I see the bumper sticker on the parked car and laugh out loud: “I’m Married…not Dead.”  There are other bumper stickers on the car – “Hungry? Eat an Environmentalist!” and “Hang Up and Drive!” and “I’d Rather Be Workin’ on the Railroad” plastered haphazardly on the back bumper of a sky blue 1966 Plymouth Valiant.  The paint on the roof is chipping off revealing the gunmetal gray undercoat, and the hood of the trunk looks like it was used as a place to vent one’s frustrations with a baseball bat.  From the shelf inside the back windshield, a bedraggled white stuffed dog with one eye missing is staring at me and smiling despite his ratty condition and lifetime spent incarcerated in the back of the Valiant.

My folks had a car like this when I was a kid and before I can stop myself I have opened the unlocked door to peek in for a nostalgic journey.  I am immediately set back by the smell of one of those pine scented cardboard Christmas trees, which is trying to and only partially succeeding in masking the smell of dog hair and cigarettes and mildew.  The driver’s side of the bench seat is covered with a green bath towel, duct taped in place on the sides and back and on the driver’s seat itself is home to a worn brown corduroy pillow with indentations that indicate it has been there for a long time. Just as I remembered, there is the little button on the floor next to the brake and when you clicked it with your foot the brights would go on.  There are little triangular “vent” windows that you could open if you wanted just a little air.

The passenger’s side is occupied by several stacks of old Model Railroader magazines,  tightly tied with string, that appear as if they are about to topple.  The dashboard, cracked from the sun, is a storage space for several years’ accumulation of dust and grime, a pair of sunglasses,  four half-full cigarette packs, a dancing Hula doll, a map of Contra Costa county, several faded  Safeway receipts and a dirty comb.  The windshield has a clear spot in the driver’s field of vision that is framed by the blue smoke film on the rest of the glass. I can’t help but notice that hanging by a ribbon from the rear view mirror is a fresh color photograph of a man and woman snuggled close to each other, wearing huge giggling smiles as if the photographer has said something very funny.  They are dressed in shorts and tees and, posed in front of a limousine,  are raising their margarita glasses to the sky.

Across the parking lot  I see a tall man, wearing a light green dress shirt unbuttoned at the top, dark blue jeans and clean athletic shoes, coming towards the car carrying a sack from Trader Joe’s and a bunch of three monster sized sunflowers wrapped in cellophane with a bow.   He is rushing towards the car, his full head of fluffy hair bouncing in rhythm as he walks. I quickly try to determine his age, but it is difficult as his snow white hair does not match his erect posture, although there does seem to be a bit of a limp in his left leg.  Sixty? Eighty? I couldn’t tell. .One things that’s clear is that it is his car I’m checking out.  It is too late for me to close the door and walk away, so I just step back a few steps, wondering how I am going to explain myself.

He looks puzzled and suspicious as he approaches me and says, “Hey, sweetie, whatcha doin’ there?”   I mumble something about thinking it was a real dog in the back window and wanting to see if it was okay.  He hesitates and then he looks down at the ground, begins a low laugh and shakes his head.  As he looks back up at me and I can see the deep wrinkles around his eyes, his forehead is a mass of horizontal furrows,  his eyebrows are scraggly and unkempt and his eyes are watery and rimmed in red.  The corners of his smile radiate out into several dimples of increasing size until they disappear into cheeks that resemble pizza dough sliding down to his jaw line.  It is impossible to ignore his huge sagging ears from which are sprouting hairs that appear to have been transplanted from his eyebrows.  From this close proximity I can tell that he is not a young man anymore, at least 75 or 80.  He smells like Old Spice and coffee, and as I move aside from the open door he gently places the flowers on top of the magazines and places the grocery bag over the back of the seat and onto the floor of the car.  “What were you really looking for?” he asks, turning around to look right into my eyes.  For a moment his eyes have stopped being friendly, and I am unnerved.

I feel silly saying I just wanted to look inside, and never consider that the second story I make up would sound sillier.   “I always wanted one of those dancing Hula dolls and to be honest I intended to snatch it off the dashboard and be on my way.  I’m sorry.  It was stupid.”  The hula dancer really does her thing as he wiggles her back and forth to release the suction, and when she is finally it is released from the dashboard he hands her to me. “Here ya go, no charge.  It cost me a whole ten cents at a garage sale and I’ve had my fun with it.  But you know, you really shouldn’t go snooping through people’s cars.”  His smile is gone completely now.

The photograph swings a bit with all the commotion.  By now I know it is a photo of the man. I’m curious to know who the woman is and where they are, but mostly I want to change the subject.  I mention that the photo is nice, where was it taken?  He softens a bit tells me it was taken just a month earlier in  Monterey, where he and his wife celebrated their fifty-second wedding anniversary.  The trip was a gift from their three children, and it included the limousine and a weekend at a bed and breakfast.  “We had a great time, and now my wife is back in Denver where she lives.”  I must have looked confused and he continues as if he is tired of explaining this again. “I live in Walnut Creek  – I like both the ocean and the mountains, and she just likes the mountains and wants to be near the grandchildren.  I have lived here all my life and my small scale railroad buddies keep me young.  So we just travel back and forth, see each other at least 6 times a year.  It works for us.  Do you live around here?”

Right about then is when I notice the nose of a jet black Walther .22 sticking out from under a pillow in the back seat, and decide it may not be a wise idea to answer any personal questions.  I tell him I live in San Francisco and now I am late for my BART, so I thank him for the hula doll, apologize again for trying to steal it, and walk away quickly with an uneasy sense that although he was nice about it, it could have ended quite differently…he is right, I should not snoop around in other people’s cars.  I am married and not dead and want to keep it that way.

I put the hula doll in my purse and walk towards the BART station.  At the corner I push the button for the walk light and as I glance back towards the car,  I feel my face go numb and panic surge through my body – he is standing on the sidewalk, looking right at me, with the gun in his hand.