Flash Fiction: A Little Goodwill

Ruess,

Lange said he wrote to you.  Go easy on him.  He can wax downright eloquent about the recent past but between the lines is a lot of hurt.  Quite a few family and friends blackballed them when little Karen got pregnant.  His wife, Rebecca, went completely zombie on him, useless as jello.  Karen carried the baby in her belly and Lange carried the cross on his back.  The fit really hit the shan, Ruess.

I told him a little about you, where you’ve been.  And about Jane.  I sure do miss her.

~~~~~~~

Roy,

Lange seems like a man who’s trying, but yes, he builds walls with words.  That’s alright.  I’ll listen for awhile.  He’s pretty angry.

I miss Jane even more these days.  I accidentally gave away a bag of her clothes last week, it had her old purple robe in it.  The lady at the Goodwill tried to help me, but its gone.  I swear that robe still smelled like her, Roy.  I’d cut my hand off to have that back…the things of this world, the precious things of this world.

~~~~~~~

Ruess,

Well, crap.  I’m pretty sure she was wearing that robe the first time I met her, that and those yellow buckaroo boots – do you remember that?  Sherry had just left me and I hadn’t touched female flesh in weeks and Jane shook my hand and I literally had to sit down, remember that?  I sorta hoped you’d get hit by a bus or something that evening and Jane and I could run off together and be lovers.  But a bus never came by.

~~~~~~~

Roy,

I remember it all.

~~~~~~~

He couldn’t believe Jane’s robe was gone.  He’d told Roy the lady at the Goodwill store tried to help, but that was a lie.  All she did was wave Ruess toward a corner of the store and say maybe back there.  His intent to elaborate was silenced as she put in some of those little white earbuds and turned her attention toward a fresh People magazine on the counter.  Ruess struck a cruciform pose, palms open, pleading one more time.  She popped her gum and raised her chin toward the back of the store.  He remembered a line from Hud: ‘You don’t look out for yourself, the only helping hand you’ll ever get is when they lower the box.’  He didn’t believe the line, but he did remember it.  Ruess turned and walked away.

He never found Jane’s robe.  But Ruess had always had some of the picker in him, and his search yielded an Annie Dillard book – For The Time Being (he’d only read her Tinker Creek), a black coffee mug with the word BOOTAY emblazoned across it in sparkly gold (it fit his hand strangely well), a terra cotta planter in the shape of a howling coyote (an ear chipped off), and a near mint 33rpm of ‘Fool On The Hill’ by Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 (some days you’re just lucky).  He gathered the four items and headed back to the front counter.  The same lady was there, same earbuds, same gum.  She keyed each item not once making eye contact with Ruess.  You wanna bag for this? Ruess said please although he was about out of patience with her; rich or poor, young or old, there’s no excuse for rude.  As he walked away, she tacked on have a good day.

He sat a moment before driving home.  Jane, I’m sorry about your robe.  I feel like the fool I am.  He could imagine her sitting there, grinning, saying Ruess, grow up.  He rustled the bag, $3 for a little goodwill.  Not bad.