On moving day Audrey knelt before her rust-crunched shitbox and attached the BEEEES license plate. The one that made the RMV lady laugh, that Zack hated. She thought about the days ahead, the drift through central Massachusetts until their friend’s house opened up. Then she decided to not feel bad about Zack not liking the plate. Audrey felt good as she worked and her body pinked beneath the heat-dome sun.
For two years Audrey and Zack lived in a former flop house by the river. They wrote marketing copy from home and the money was enough to buy food and weed and video games. It was a rut but the rut felt good. Ruts feel good, easy, quiet. Audrey said nothing as her freelance contracts turned to salt. Zack said nothing after he called a client a bitch and then, each staggered morning afterward got high and sent unreadable pitches to local businesses. Spring arrived and one of the numberless eastern slumlords spectered west and snapped the land beneath them. Promised friendship then tripled the rent.
Audrey finished as Zack sagged outside with trash bags full of laundry under his arms. His flip-flops slapped against the cracked sidewalk.
Do you have the keys? he asked.
Audrey reached into her shorts pocket and clicked the unlock button on the fob. The shitbox bleated in reply. Over the next hour, they jammed their life inside: hair-choked window fans, dusty consoles, bulging duffels, unwashed linens, old clothes too tight to wear. A mattress duct-taped to the roof, a torn tarp drawn across. The couch and the flatscreen remained upstairs in limp defiance of their loss.
They camped out in a cheap motel in Westminster. A luxury while they searched for work. Zack cursed the slag-dragged Wi-Fi as night began.
I’ll do deliveries, he said. He paced barefoot and slid some vended pretzels in his mouth.
The car won’t survive that for long, said Audrey. And I’m the better driver.
I’ll do it. It’ll help me get better. I love you.
I love you too. It’s only temporary. You just need to watch the gas and oil.
Once we get the room in Greenfield we’re good.
It’s only temporary.
I love you.
Zack fetched fast-food sacks from Gardner and wandered Route 2’s tragic oxidation in search of cash. Stole from orders, cursed their names, anxious, tipless. One job bequeathed a $20 tip. The guy said everyone deserves some hope. Even losers. Not that you’re a loser, stressed the guy.
Back at the hotel, a family of five dragged luggage bags into Zack and Audrey’s room. A mix-up. The family shared their supper, sopping chicken, sauteed styrofoam. Audrey unveiled a faded stem of wine. The locked door clicked at dawn. A couple, dressed too warm for summer, flashed their door cards and built a bed beneath the bathroom sink.
Audrey scoured the internet. Found a gig in Templeton. Some dude named Richard needed help with renovations, explained the ad. When Zack dropped her off Richard was shredding couch cushions on the lawn. Said he was deconstructing his life.
Richard paid Audrey $45 to collect every light bulb in the house and grind them with a cinder block. $75 to send wooden doors through the chipper. $200 to pile every book, every letter, every piece of paper they could find, and light a fire.
This feels good, said Richard. Firelight oiled his face.
I could never do this. I never get rid of anything.
Nothing?
I get too attached. To everything.
Like it’s an inseparable part of you.
Yeah.
I feel like I’m breaking up with the worst parts of myself. The parts I couldn’t let go after he left.
He?
Yeah.
I’m sorry.
Me, too.
Audrey hosed some scattered flames as Richard filled an envelope with cash. That’s everything, he said. Audrey felt the urge to hug him but took the money, shook his hand, and wandered down the drive. She heard the shitbox wheeze from down the street. Turned back, while Zack approached, as Richard knelt and kissed the charred remains.
They spent a week in the motel. Then a month in big-box retail shadows, the stunted eaves of once-great labor towns. Mildew stalked their clothes, their shoes, the mattress on the roof. Then the room in Greenfield opened up. Their friend carved a basement corner for what possessions did survive. Warm sheets, home meals, drowsy romance bathed the rest they found. Audrey played guitar again.
In the fall, a letter, read aloud as Zack and Audrey’s slow-cooked dinners slept. A sale. New rules. A month or two, and then the time to go.
Michael McSweeney is a writer from Massachusetts.
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