So picture this. Me, howling across the bridge in this nearly-new Buick I got minutes before from Bobby’s chop shop special order? Stolen car, windows down, Halloween wind, pinballing through traffic like I deserve this car, this life. You’ve seen it. My girl drives it now? Power everything? Fenders like cheerleader thighs? I skid sideways into the only space in line at the tolls and, shit, I’m in the Ticket Sales lane. Here’s the thing: I’ve got a screwdriver jammed in the ignition, I’ve got a Pennsy plate on the back, Jersey on the front until the paperwork should clear. I hang a dirty rag on the wiper handle to hide the ignition from the toll collector and shit myself. Who, Bobby? He’s just what you’d expect: sleeveless black Metallica tee shirt, Mister T starter set around his neck, calls me Boss, calls everybody Boss. Pulling down three four hundred grand tax free, most of it going to speedballs and paying off cops, has no actual boss. There’d be photos for the DMV, some with body parts removed to document how we “salvaged” it, others with a reset camera date and the parts put back on. Then last November a sting operation shut our Bobby boy down for good. They’d been videotaping him. Made the local news. Don’t I come to see the back of my own head on TV one night, taking the door off a Buick. Beautiful car. Wife wouldn’t drive it ‘til I made her something out of a key blank to start it with. But when I pay the toll and roll up the windows, I see backwards writing on the glass in yellow: DNUOPMI. Bobby’s little joke. I floor it away from that toll booth and start listening for sirens behind me. Funny guy.
Copyright © December 15, 2006
Very Short Novels 
3 comments
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December 16, 2006 at 5:38 am
litlove
Do you know the Derridean concept of supplementarity? It’s the way that each little extra turns out to be essential to what went before. I really feel the dynamic of supplementarity at work in this piece, each new sentence adding another dimension of surprise. Dark and intriguing.
I’ve gotten most of my Derrida secondhand, litlove, but I’ve always admired his sympathetic heckler approach and I like what you say about new sentences altering the meanings of the earlier. I think the technique practiced by the narrator of The View from Mars comes closest to what the Derrida I’ve read would describe as supplementarity, enriching a present moment by adding additional points of view to the experience at hand, something I’m always trying to do in my little pieces. As always, thank you for making my stories better than they are.
–David
December 18, 2006 at 11:40 pm
lillianblack
Interesting. Neat, concise little package with a slightly gritty feel to it.
Thanks, Lillian. Gritty works here; greasy too.
–David
January 18, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Paul Burke
“Pennsy plate on the back, Jersey on the front” – Nirvana in some parts of the world …along the Delaware River – thanks for the smile….Paul
Thanks, Paul. Good to know you appreciated the local color. Happy to have you as a reader!
–David