A Different Kind of Independence Day -- Flash Fiction

She waited until he left for work then packed her bag (his bag really, the biggish one with wheels) and called Lyft for a ride to the airport. The $15,000 she got for her car ($14,984 to be exact) wouldn’t last long, but it would have to do.

On the way to the airport, she pulled up flight information on her phone. A new phone completely separate from Martin’s account. Southwest Airlines allowed two free checked bags, but she had only one. One checked bag and one carry-on -- her computer bag -- would be enough to keep up with when she got to her destination.

Her destination? Some place he wouldn’t think of. Not Dallas. Her sister lived in Dallas. Some place he didn’t know she knew anyone. She didn’t know anyone in Jackson, Mississippi, but she didn’t know if Jackson had good public transportation. She needed some place with good public transportation, now that she didn’t have a car.

Minneapolis had good public transportation. She’d been there once. Before she met Martin. Neither she nor her sister had ever been up north. They were in college and it was Fall Break. They first saw Minneapolis just before the sun went down. The sky was clear and the city seemed to rise out of the prairie. All glass and steel, it shone like a beacon marking the end of their journey.

She didn't know anyone in Minneapolis so he'd never think to look there. She entered Minneapolis into the destination box. The cheapest one-way ticket was for a flight leaving at 5:45. Martin wouldn’t be home until six or a little after. She’d be gone.

She entered her credit card number. Her own credit card number from her own account. Not a joint account with Martin. Her first concrete act of defiance. Leaving hadn’t been a real option then. Or, at least, she hadn’t seen it that way. It was just something to think about.

“I want my own money,” she told him. “What if I want to buy you a gift? I don’t want to buy you a gift with your money.”

“But it’s our money. Your check goes in there, too,” he said.

“I’ll just put a little into my account. The rest will continue to go into our account.”

“How much?” he asked.

“Just a hundred a month.”

That satisfied him. Not that his income didn’t easily cover their living expenses, plus. He just didn’t want her to have too much money of her own. He was afraid she’d leave him.

Well, she certainly didn’t have too much money of her own. But it was her own, and she was leaving him.

She should have left months ago. When she realized there was nothing she could do to make it work.

She couldn’t tell when he was going to go off  anymore. Or what it was that would set him off. Mention of a co-worker’s good fortune. Asking him when he’d be home from some meeting or other so she could plan dinner. Complaining about the neighbor’s noisy dog. Things she thought would do it, didn’t. And subjects that it would never occur to her to be dangerous, would be. She had to get out.

When she lied to him about her car being in the shop for a few days, he didn’t lift an eyebrow.

She didn’t tell anyone where she was going. Of course she didn’t know until now. She’d call her parents when she got there. Tell them she was safe. But she wouldn’t tell them where she was. At least not at first. So they couldn’t tell him. Keep them out of it as much as possible.

She’d send Martin an email as the plane was boarding. He’d be on his way home. She was glad they didn’t have children. Or pets. There’d be no one for him to take it out on.

“Thank you,” she said to the Lyft driver.

He set her bag on the curb under the Southwest Airlines sign. She took the bag, the doors opened, and she walked through. Smiling.

Jim Morrison, My Friend K, The Trip, and Someone I Know

Fallon does Morrison on YouTube 

That video reminded me of the time my son John​ Ryan and I helped my friend K Brown move to Minneapolis from Guthrie, Oklahoma.

I hope you're sitting down to read this and have a minute or two, because I tend to wander while telling a story.

At the time this story starts I had been divorced for nine years and had not been in a relationship for more than a year. Scott was the first man in that nine years that I had actually wanted to live with. We broke up because I wanted a baby. At thirty-eight, I thought my time was running out. He didn't want a baby.

The break-up was painful, but unlike my romantic eleven-year-old son, I knew no one dies of a broken heart. I had no contact with Scott for more than a year. The amazing part was that I made no attempt to contact him. I used that year for me -- got physically and mentally healthy.

K was my best friend. She was my mother's age and probably the wisest person I ever knew. And the most elegant smoker in the world. Made me wish I smoked, which I just never could do. One of the few vices I didn't pick up. Thank goodness.

Minneapolis was her home town. Hers was a large family but none of them lived in Oklahoma. Her son lived in California and her grandchildren in Kansas. She had a vast array of friends near her, but as a widow, I think she just needed family. She needed to go home.

Plans were made, a U-Haul truck rented, and plane tickets back to Oklahoma for my son and me purchased. We'd be in Minneapolis for Thanksgiving.

Then a couple of nights before we left Scott called. He wanted to take me out to dinner. Hmmmm. Okay. But not until I got back from Minnesota. K's advice? "Don't worry about it. Let's just have a good trip."

K's friends helped us load the big truck with all K's worldly goods. I don't know how big, but really big. Bigger than anything I'd ever driven. It was big enough that I was grateful it was an automatic with power steering and breaks. Big enough that John Ryan had to CLIMB on top of the hood to wash the windows. Of course he wasn't as tall then as he is now. That was thirty years ago.

Anyway, I was feeling pretty full of myself, sitting up high above much of the rest of the traffic north bound on I-35. We pulled through a weigh-in station as we came into Kansas. Just like those other truckers. And discovered we didn't have to, because our truck wasn't that big.

We stopped in Wichita for lunch with K's grandchildren and former daughter-in-law. K's son and his family are Native American. That former daughter-in-law makes dee-luscious Indian tacos. From there I-35 angles northeast to Kansas City, Missouri, where I planned to meet a friend.

I had no idea Kansas City is so hilly. The rest of Kansas is just across the river and is flat as a pancake, as far as I could see -- literally. The skies were threatening, the temperature was dropping, and snow plows passed us as we turned into the parking lot at my friend's office building. Making sure I parked where I wouldn't have to back out.

I hadn't seen a snow plow since Gallup, New Mexico, on a trip some five years earlier with my son and my grandmother. (But that's a whole 'nother story.) I didn't know it was going to snow in Kansas City. And me driving an unfamiliar truck. A big truck. We didn't stop long.

I hoped to get ahead of the snow. Well, I didn't and it snowed. And snowed. By the time we got into Iowa, we had driven out of the snow. It wasn't sunny, but it wasn't snowing.  The plowed fields in Iowa were black with snow wind-scattered across them. They were so black I thought there must have been a terrible fire.

K was quick to explain to this red earth Oklahoman that that was the natural color of the soil. Black!

It rained most of the way into Des Moines. Everything was muddy and drizzly. It was near midnight. I was the only driver on this trip and I was exhausted. (K did not know how to drive. I had endeavored but failed to teach her in my standard transmission yellow Chevette. My son summed it up nicely, "Mom, she makes the car fart!" If you've ever tried driving with a clutch, you'll understand.)

And most of the motels along I-35 were full.

K and John Ryan let me take a shower first and go to bed. They were watching TV. You know how those motel rooms are -- two double beds and a couch.

(And this is what the Jimmy Fallon bit reminded me of.)

Through my half-awake eyes, I saw what looked like The Doors on TV. Now you know and I know that Jim Morrison died before my son was born, so it couldn't have been him. And music videos were not that common on TV in 1986.

I thought it was pretty odd that someone was impersonating Jim Morrison and The Doors. Elvis impersonators were weird enough, as far as I was concerned. I drifted off into much needed sleep.

Weeks later I learned that it had been old film of The Doors. And years later I saw the Fallon impersonation of Jim Morrison. Very funny, but not weird.

So we got K moved and flew home to Oklahoma. Minneapolis, by-the-bye, was a beautiful, clean city. We first saw it glinting in the setting sun. All glass and steel rising from the winter brown prairie.

After we got home, Scott came to pick me up for dinner. He asked me to marry him. And I said yes.

I called my brother, who did then and does now, live on the Texas Gulf Coast. "Guess what," I said.
"I'm getting married."

"You are? Is it anyone you know?" he asked.

Yep. We married New Years Eve. And he's someone I'm still enjoying getting to know.