Sunday Summer Nights by Michaela Fisher
The truck squeaks frantically under the lone flickering street lamp, the pug bobble-head keeping perfect time on the dashboard. Surrounding the deserted street are endless rows of corn, held stagnant in the humid summer air. Mosquitos hum around the isolated source of light, occasionally flying too close and tail spinning into the dirt road like dying fireworks.
The rusty truck windows are cloudy, obscured by heated breath. Inside two bodies strain together in the pushed down passenger seat. Their clothes are strewn about, her zebra striped bra draped across the stick shift, his wrinkled John Deer shirt crumpled in the back. The inside of the old truck smells like Blue Ribbon beer and chew, a smell they have both long since become numb to.
This is not their first time, in the truck. It is a ritual they have every Sunday night. A release of sorts, before the long stretching week.
He clenches her hips when he comes, a groan escaping between chapped lips. He pushes himself off her as he slides into the driver’ s seat, both of their bodies slick with sweat. The truck, now finally at rest, gives way to the sound of swarms of crickets in the cornfields.
She pulls up the seat so it’ s level once more and wordlessly reaches for her panties wadded up on the truck floor. He pushes back damp brown hair, which is swallowed a moment later by his camo hat.
He holds out the used rubber like one might hold a feral barn cat, with both disdain and caution. He rolls down the window a stitch, heavy air nearly as hot as the inside of the truck greeting him.
He glances back at her; she is just sliding her shirt back onto her thin frame. He is staring at her crooked beige birthmark that kisses her hip when he tosses the condom out of his window.
Perhaps it is his tired brown eyes on her, or the window only being partially cracked, or the repetition has simply made him lazy, but whatever the reason, rubber does not meet dirt. Instead, the used condom clips the top of the windowpane, and ricochets backward, spilling its contents all over the steering wheel.
A gasp of surprise erupts from him, followed by a passionate string of curses. Some of it begins to drip onto his worn ripped jeans, and he jumps out of the truck before another milky drop can fall. His boots hit the ground hard, sending up a muted cloud of dust in the late summer air. Still muttering curses he wipes his jeans with his hand, his lips curled in disgust. When he is done he looks back at her expectantly, and then pulls a container of chew from his back pocket and turns away from the truck.
She sighs, running her fingers across her sensitive face, irritated by his unshaved stubble. She opens the glove compartment, and a clutter of ketchup packets, pens, torn maps, and old chip bags come into view. Gingerly, she ruffles between the messes until she procures a wad of napkins. She looks at him, his back turned as he scuffs his shoes against red dirt. Shaking her head, she reaches across to the driver’ s side seat and starts to wipe away the Sunday summer night.
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