Gemma’s Big Fail: An American Landscape Short Story

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Stepping back into a cone of light and misty fog Gemma set a crowbar in the bed of her pickup. A metallic thunk echoed across the dimly lit parking lot. She glanced once more into the shadows toward her husband’s prized ‘65 Mustang, the windows now in twinkling pieces scattered around the car. 

She slipped into her truck, buckled up, and started the engine.

Foot on brake, she waited. 

After a few moments, Darren and two of his buddies, Rod and Larry, weaved their way out of the bar’s front door. They were yucking it up as usual, slapping shoulders and laughing hysterically at one of their lame jokes, Gemma assumed. 

She hoped this was the last time she would ever see Darren, her husband of three years. But she couldn’t drag herself away just now, not until seeing the look on his face.

The guys looked for their respective cars. Darren slowed, making a move away from his buddies, waving a hand, tracking left. Gemma froze. 

Rod and Larry went to the right, Rod in the lead. The squat man pulled up, stopping, and bending forward. Gemma could only see the man’s curse. He threw his hands up and cupped his face on either side. The men saw the classic car in the dim shadows.

Gemma waited for it. I’m right here Darren, you prick. She swapped feet on the brake pedal and revved the engine.

The men turned. 

They found the noise. Rod’s hands seemed bolted to his head; dread plastered on his ashen face. Darren took a half step toward Gemma and her pickup. 

The pressure she held on to the brake pedal eased, her leg quivered.

Darren directed his gaze, set his eyes on Gemma’s, and started to laugh a ridiculous hoot.

Darren laughed so hard he bent over and put his hands on his knees. 

Larry put a hand on Rod’s shoulder and said something to him. Rod turned to his friend and slowly lowered his hands. The man took Rod in his arms and patted his back. Darren’s laughter died away. He went to the two men and said something. Rod looked at Darren, listening. Then he slugged Gemma’s husband so hard he fell to one knee.

Gemma watched this for what seemed to be hours, before it sank in, and she turned toward the car. She squinted her eyes and peered through the mist. When her eyes found the license plate, she gasped.

Darren stood up on shaky legs. Rod and the other man walked to the old Mustang, surveying the damage. Darren locked his eyes on Gemma and weaved a line across the parking lot and to the side of the bar. His car sat in the shadows. Panic rose in Gemma’s guts. Darren pulled something from his car and walked toward Gemma and her pickup truck. 

She revved the engine and held the brake strong. The pickup shuddered and twisted in place.

With a sober stroll, Darren came to the front of his wife’s pickup. He lifted a handgun, cocked the hammer back, and pointed the thing at the front of the pickup. 

A blast shattered the still night air, stirring Gemma to action. She lifted her foot from the brake pedal. And the engine died with a metallic rattle and a quiver that shook Gemma’s ass in the seat.

Darren rounded the corner of the truck, moving toward Gemma. She threw her door open and jumped down from her now dead steed. As soon as she contacted Mother Earth, she ran for all she was worth. She saw a dark path she knew headed to a liquor store beyond a narrow grove of pines and thick bush. Another gunshot rang out. The sound of metal being mangled by lead told Gemma this bullet too had found her truck. She thrashed into the dark, limbs slapping her arms, legs, and face.

Gemma popped out of the darkness and into a small, lighted lot in front of the liquor store. It was closed, the lights inside black. She heard Darren shouting something and coming for her. She continued her sprint, found the edge of the highway, and could see a gas station two hundred yards away. Her quads burned with an effort she hadn’t felt since high school track, where she raced the 400- and 800-yard dashes. 

Darren let go another round. Gemma sent her awareness in search of a wound she did not find. She left the lights of the little parking lot and set out for the gas station, searching for any kind of help she could find. Darren shouted, taunting her.

Only that morning things had been so different. She had laid there postcoital in Darren arms, hoping for better days ahead for her still young marriage. 

When Gemma got out of bed, a spotlight of the rising sun cast through easterly storm clouds coating their community lake and neighborhoods. The verdant scene was framed by snow dusted ridge lines and mountain peaks. Then the doorbell rang.

From the window as Gemma went to answer the door, she could see geese bobbing in the lake on fine ripples like a happy baby would have made in a tub. Mallard pairs paddled calmly, and loons and teals skittered about no different this cold morning than during a sunbaked afternoon.

She answered the door. A pretty brunette stood there in cutoff jeans and a sweater she had pulled tight in her arms held across her chest. They eyed one another.

The young woman had stood there on Gemma’s porch and told the entire sordid story. How she had met Darren at work. How he said he loved her. How much they loved each other. Gemma wanted to puke on the woman’s baby blue sneakers. When she went to close the door, the brunette threw an arm up and pushed back. They struggled. Gemma was surprised by the little thing’s herculean strength. They froze, fiery eyes locked on each other’s.

Gemma had relented and let the young beauty speak. She wanted nothing from Gemma—except her husband. She said things like, no one planned this, and it just happened. How very cliché, Gemma had thought.

As Gemma’s mind came back to the darkness where she ran beside the vacant highway, she recalled the dark feelings that engulfed her with what the young woman had to say. In six months, she would have Darren’s baby, not Gemma.

Darren shouted again, but this time from farther back. The roar of a V8 blared behind her, then the sound of another powerful vehicle. They came fast and blew past Gemma, both men shouting horrible things at her. Shards of glass littered the roadway, some falling at her feet, another nicking her face.

She arrived at the gas station on faltering legs. She looked back. Darren was gone. She turned to the convenience store. It too was closed, lights out. She slowly spun 360 degrees, seeking options. She heard another muscle car engine roaring her way. It had to be Darren.

Darren’s Mustang screeched into the light of the gas station. He spun the wheel left and right, searching with his car’s headlights. Gemma squeezed into a spot only large enough for a small dog or a big rat. When light beams came at her, she pulled her face back just in time to hide. He called out, taunting her again. He revved the engine he had rebuilt in their garage. He rolled slowly forward, steering the vehicle around the back of the convenience store. 

Gemma saw her only opportunity. As Darren’s car, his yet untouched pride and joy, slipped behind the station, Gemma stood to run. Her legs protested, feeling as tight as welded steel. Reaching down, she rubbed and pounded hard on her quads and bent her knees until her muscles awakened. She heard the V8 rev again and again. And her husband’s hecklings in the darkness.

She had to move. Leaving the lighted lot, she sprinted with all she could along the side of the dark highway. Sweat streamed down her face, cooling in the night air. A bead of perspiration trickled a path down her spine and to the small of her back. 

Her muscles objected, but she continued to run into the dark, now feeling the edge of the asphalt more than seeing it. The revs of her cheating husband’s engine died away as she ran away from the convenience store. Then they returned, loud as ever. She glanced over her shoulder. Beams lighted the highway at an angle, bouncing up and down in the trees opposite of the station. They turned for her. She couldn’t outrun him. Could she outsmart him?

She ran in darkness until Darren flicked on the high beams. No sense looking back now. In the new light, though, she could see driveways, and up ahead, a crossroad. If she went left, she would come to Big Lake, be blocked in. Darren would have her then. What would he do?

She had warned Darren’s pregnant girlfriend of his violent temper. The woman heard none of it. She explained his drinking problem. The brunette ignored her. Gemma told her about losing a child because of a battering she had suffered at Darren’s mean hands. The little brunette waved the news off, saying she could change him, that her love for him would fix everything.

Gemma read the road signs and sprinted across the intersection, running away from the lake and toward her work. The refinery operated 24/7. But it was at least two miles away. Darren turned the corner. His lights again fell on her back. Her legs had done all they could at a run. Gasping for air, she started to walk. The angry, violent beast was coming quick. 

When the young woman had started to cry, Gemma went for a tissue. They sat on the porch in the chairs she and Darren had repaired and repainted the summer before. The young thing wept hard. Gemma leaned over and held her tenderly, while cursing herself for the kind offer and looking for a way to rid herself of the morning, a way to start the day on a different track.

Gemma could see the glow of lights from the oil refinery, still miles away. She had grown up here. Think girl, think. She had played in these woods, paddled the many lakes, big and small, and climbed several of the nearby peaks. She had known every back road and thin lane of these parts. There was an escape route. She just needed to find it, soon. The cat would only toy with her for so long.

Darren flicked his lights from low to high beam, back and forth. He honked the horn and blasted another round into the misty sky. She knew now that he would not shoot her. Or at least she hoped he wouldn’t shoot her. Ahead, Gemma saw a familiar sign, its aged neon flickering an odd beat, like a heart’s beat, bright then dim then bright then dim. She forced her legs to sprint across the road and down a lane passing the rhythmic flickering of the sign. Darren revved the V8 and hurried to Gemma’s new route.

In the darkness, before he made the turn, she tried to remember if she ever got the young woman’s name. Not that it really mattered. She was having Darren’s child. Good riddance to them both. The headlight beams caught her again, but she had a plan. 

Darren shifted the car into a higher gear. The engine noise died away just before he gassed it and sped toward Gemma. She ran, hoping she could make it to her turn just before he flattened her. He may not shoot her, but. . .  No, he wouldn’t chance denting his precious car. She didn’t think so. But he was coming fast. 

Gemma dove hard left just as the Mustang roared past on her right. Maybe he would have hit her. From a muddy puddle, Gemma looked up to see Darren’s brake lights come on. The car kept flying. It weaved left and right, sliding on yesterday’s rain and mud. Gemma cursed the mud, only to thank it for its part in her escape. She found her footing and eased to the edge of the path before her. She looked over her shoulder and could she Darren had finally stopped the car. She heard its engine rev louder and louder. Wheels spun, sending a hushed whirring sound through the woods. She walked as fast as she could, guided by the refinery lights glowing in the distance. Darren shouted at her in the darkness.

When Gemma came to a road that she knew would take her straight to her office, she was still thinking of the brunette. She thought of her with Darren, in his strong arms, listening to his lies. She cringed at the thought of all the bull he would tell her after tonight. The bull she used to listen to, yet never believed. She knew this day would come. But she had never expected it to arrive on her doorstep.

Nearly to the refinery’s gate, Gemma herd sirens blaring behind her. See spun and saw red and blue lights flickering through the forest two or three miles away. It took them long enough, she thought to herself. She walked up to the security gate, said a friendly greeting, and gave her employee ID number to a nightshift guard she had never met before. He stuck his head out toward the road looking for her car. She made an excuse. He called the nightshift supervisor.

Gemma found the supervisor in his office. She knew and trusted the man for his work at the refinery, so Gemma explained herself. Not every gory detail, but enough that he understood her presence at that hour. The phone rang. It was Darren. 

The supervisor handed Gemma the phone and left the office. He had rounds to do. She took the receiver and looked at it. What did she have left to say? She had planned her exit. All her clothes and her things from the house were in the back of her now dead pickup truck sitting at a roadside bar. She glanced up to the wall and searched for a clock. Seeing the time, she cursed the night. She eyed the phone’s receiver again, and could hear a calm, familiar voice coming from the device. She hung it up.

Gemma went to her office. It was locked and she had left her keys, her purse, everything she owned in the pickup. She leaned into and slid down the wall of the dull gray hallway. She placed her hands on her knees, palms up, and her face fell forward into her hands.

She wasn’t sure how long she had been there when the super came back from the refinery. He found her and helped her up. They walked to the kitchen, and he poured her some coffee. He suggested she call the police, give her side of the story. She was reluctant. She would be charged with damaging Rod’s car. The supervisor told Gemma about a story he had recently read. The gist of it was that the outcome would have been better for the woman in the story if she had dealt with what she had done, confessed before the cops found her.

Gemma was certain he was making this all up, but she felt warm inside at his kind gesture. And she knew he was right. She went to the wall phone and dialed the Sheriff’s number staring at her from an emergency list beside the phone.

After telling a very short version of her story through a quavering voice, she hung up. A deputy was on his way to the refinery. The super called the guard gate. He said to let the deputy in when they arrived. Gemma watched the man. She knew and respected him. He was a good ten years older than her, but he was fit, and handsome. Silly thought, she admonished herself.

The deputy was shown to the kitchen by another refinery employee. Gemma almost launched her coffee through her nose. Darren was with him. He had a smarmy look on his face. Gemma knew the deputy was one of her husband’s old friends from high school. 

When Darren made a move toward his wife, the supervisor cut him off, asking if the two men would like some coffee. Darren stopped and looked at the man with venom in his eyes. The deputy said coffee would be appreciated and that they should all take a seat. He drew out a chair close to Gemma and pulled a notebook and pen from a chest pocket.

An hour later, Darren and the deputy were ready to leave the refinery. Darren would be under investigation for discharging a firearm in public—though there was no public to witness said incident. Gemma reminded the deputy of her dead pickup and the evidence it would provide. He checked this detail in his notes and warned Gemma that if Rod pressed charges she would be charged with willful destruction of personal property. It was only broken glass. Gemma said she was careful of that. The deputy wrote more notes, and they left.

He filled Gemma’s coffee cup and walked her to his office. They chatted until dawn.

Gemma had a new plan. The supervisor, his name was George, said that after his shift, he would help her with her pickup, see if it were repairable. And they would find her a place to stay while the Sheriff’s Office figured out the legal ramifications of the long night.

By then, Gemma knew two new things: She would come to work Monday morning like usual. And now she knew George was single and did not own a classic car.

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While sketching out the backstory and family history for Camino Child and our lead character, Summer Darling, I wrote a novella about her grandmother when she was a young woman backpacking through Europe in the 1980s with her older sister. CLICK here to download your FREE copy of Georgia & Patricia.

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