KICK STAND: A SHORT STORY
Doug hasn’t come home for awhile now. Most feel this is odd, and I should look into it. But I figure if he wanted to come home he would’ve, and he must’ve chose not to. A lot of people suggest that something bad might’ve happened to him. Murdered even. At least banged up in a car accident or something. I should check the police reports and all that. Pick up the phone and call them. I tell them to not worry about it. It’s my business and, besides, if Doug was dead I would feel it intrinsically as his wife. And I don’t feel death. What I feel is loss. Because another reason I’m not too worried about Doug’s well being is that he talked about leaving. Like all the time.
“Teresa, one day I’m going to stomp out that door and never come back. Best believe it,” Doug said. Oh, I don’t know, a few days or so before he went missing. He said something to this effect a lot. Didn’t even have to be drinking to lash out with some verbal allusion to him strapping on his work boots and hitting the road with no intention of return.
I really don’t blame him, though. I’m a shit wife to Doug. I don’t cook or clean or fuck him. Which would be fine if I was one of those feminist types. Career driven and what not. A lady boss. But that’s certainly not me. Never has been and never will be. No, mostly I just like to sit at home in our two bedroom house that was his momma’s before she died and watch what also used to be her TV. She died fairly recently so it’s a forty-five inch smart TV. Nicest TV I ever sat and vegged out in front of. Kind of silly in some ways, though, because I typically like to just watch whatever. I like to flip around. When I’m not flipping, I like to watch QVC or anything that’s a live sale. Picture quality don’t mean all that much when you’re watching a live sale of some earrings you’d love to buy, but know you ain’t got the guts to call in for.
There’s a reason why I’m so shit to Doug. It’s not that I hate him or he beats me. Hell, aside from his justifiable gripes about leaving, he’s downright swell to me. It’s just that I have nothing left to give. You see, when I was a kid I had a sister named Patty. She had three legs. Sounds strange, I know. But it’s true and a miracle. Patty came out of mother’s womb with not one or two but three legs. Two normal ones and the third one was kind of like a kick stand, which is also what the kids in school used to call her, “Kick Stand.” I never called her that to her face, but when she wasn’t around I even called her “Kick Stand,” too. What can I say? It was catchy. The problem with living with Kick Stand was that her third leg had a mind of it’s own. Not possessed or anything, but it had all sorts of tangled up nerves from the freak nature of the whole thing that made her leg kick over anything around. Tables, chairs, toys, trees, boys, antiques, desks, and food trays to name a few. As her big sister, I always got tasked with cleaning up the messes. Both at home and in public. I didn’t mind, though, I thrived with the sense of purpose. People called me her “angel,” which would fill my heart so full that at night I’d sleep like one on a puffy cloud in heaven. On top of that, I used to get real protective so that any time someone made fun of Kick Stand I’d take them out. I’ve never had a girlish figure. Built more like a family fridge. So, it shouldn’t have surprised Rick Tunney as much as it did when I knocked the wind out of him with a fist to his gut for calling Kick Stand her name to her face in high school. After we graduated, though, the strangest thing happened. The doctor told Kick Stand her third leg had reached a breaking point and needed to be removed or her life would be at risk. I stayed at both the hospital and at home with her through the whole process to take care of her. I fed her, bathed her, and, mostly, cried with her. A couple months later, she was on her two feet. For the first time. She took to having two feet really well, actually. All of the sudden, Kick Stand was an active runner. So much so, that she lost a bunch of weight. Wasn’t too long before the boys in town took notice of her new figure and her lack of a third leg. Before I knew it, she met Bobby, and they were married. Then, Bobby and Kick Stand moved to Maine where Bobby got a job as a proctologist in a private practice.
After that, I wasn’t sure what to do. I was tired. I’m still tired. Mother suggested I get my own Bobby. That’s how Doug got in the picture. Doug is nice and all. He’s built like a family freezer that’s kept in the garage so he makes me feel dainty in comparison, which is nice. But sometimes at night, I’d lay awake praying in the morning I’d wake up and he’d have a third leg. Which he never did. He only had the two that he used to walk out the door and keep moving to wherever he’s at these days. But that’s fine, like I said. I had a hunch that leaving is how all stories end, anyway. And since Doug hasn’t come back, now I know it’s true. Just like how I know that tomorrow is a weekday and there will be more jewelry on TV that I won’t buy and somewhere in Maine a man named Bobby will peer deep into the depths of someone’s asshole.
