Flash Fiction Friday -- Nothing in Flash Friday

Prompt: dog star, green light, heavy chain. I only managed to use heavy chain.

“What am I supposed to do, then? Just leave her stuck there?” John demanded. “Get your keys and let’s go.”

“Man, I got better things to do than bail your fucking mom out,” Mike said as he took a key ring off a nail hammered into the wall above the laminate counter. “You coming, Bill?”

“Yeah, I’m coming,” Bill said as he slowly got to his feet.

Bill climbed into the cab of the pickup truck. John sat up front. Mike drove.

“So what did Ant Crystal do now?” Mike asked as he pulled onto the two lane county road.

“I don’t even know,” John replied. “She wanted to turn around or go around the lake or something and she let the car drift. I don’t know. She’s, like, totally fucked up. We just got to get the car out the lake.”

“That’s going to suck,” Bill complained. “Your mom needs, like, rehab or something. She is always fucked up. No offense, dude. But she is.”

“I know,” John said. He looked out the window and watched the pines go by in a blur.

Individual trees became identifiable as Mike slowed. A wooden sign announced “Pine Needle Estates”. Mike turned right into the driveway of the trailer park. The pickup followed the paved road to the end and continued on a well worn dirt trail to the lake, which was little more than a watering hole in a marshy swamp. A green car with the driver’s side door hanging open sat deep in the mud with its front end dipped below the water line.

MIke turned the truck around so the hitch faced the rear of the car and backed up as far as he thought the dry ground lasted. John could see Joe standing on the opposite side of the dirt road. He had a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Crystal was standing behind Joe with a black sweater stretched across her shoulders. Her bare legs were covered in mud to just above her knee. She had no shoes.

“John, baby, you’re back,” Crystal cried out when she saw her son emerge from the truck.

“Yeah, mom, I’m back,” John said as he deflected her boozy embrace. “You OK?”

“Yeah, I’m OK,” Crystal said. “Your stepfather is an asshole, in case you didn’t know, but I’m OK.”

John grabbed Crystal by the shoulders and looked hard at her face. With only the sparse light from the headlights of the vehicles driven by those who came to help and those who came to watch, John couldn’t tell if Joe had recently hit Crystal or not.

“You’re OK, right?” John demanded.

“Yeah, I said I was OK,” Crystal said as she wriggled free from John’s grasp. “I’m fine.”

“You going to stand there chatting with the ladies all night or are you going to help us do this?” Joe called to John. Joe was up to his calves in the mud. He held a tow hook attached to a heavy chain that extended from the back of the pickup. John left his mother to wade into the mud to meet Joe.

“Dig that shit out of there so I can hook this up,” Joe ordered as he thrust a shovel at John. John accepted the shovel and tried to position himself to start digging. Joe stopped John almost as soon as John started shoveling.

“Give me that, you douche,” Joe spat as he took the shovel from John. Joe gave John the tow hook. “Do you think you can manage to hold that?”

John took the tow hook and tried to move to give Joe room to swing the shovel. John nearly fell as he pulled his feet from the mud.

Then Joe lost his footing. Soupy, dark water poured around his leg as Joe slipped into the hole he had dug. His head stopped just short of the edge of the car. It occurred to John that if he leaned forward, he would have the leverage to bash Joe’s head against the wheel well. No more drunken arguments. No more trips to the emergency room. No more bullshit.

“Nah, mom. You tied yourself to this loser,” John said to himself. “You figure out how to get rid of him.”

“What?” Joe asked as he looked up at John.

“Nothing,” John said.