When the trophy hits the quarry rocks far below, she imagines the golfer’s tiny gold head flying, the toothpick-thin golf club spinning away, broken off hands still gripping the shaft. She wishes there were some magical voodoo correspondence between his body and all these shatterings.
That while sitting around the conference table with the entourage of shitheads in his orbit, his head would violently fly off mid boast like a jet pilot ejecting from his craft. Another month has burned down and he’s yet to come for all his junk. She packed their kids, boy, age ten, girl age five, into the CRV’s backseat, filled the trunk with his belongings, including a hoard of golf trophies, and driven high up to a small gravel lot on the quarry’s ridge. Today is officially Shatterday.
True, he had left them all, but mostly he left her, and of course it was for some co-fucker in crime at his office. She gets hot black inside thinking about that night he left, and how she was melting all over him, begging him not to leave, and grabbing at his arms, until he finally shoved her away, a look of disgust souring his face. She stood there stunned for a moment and then, “Yeah, well fuck you and that concubine you rode in on.”
They frisbee his collector’s albums over the drop, including his prized White Album, all slipped from the sleeves, so they are sure to break into shards. There is oohing and awing as each record flashes in the sun. They chuck his golf clubs: wedges, drivers and putters, twirling like helicopter blades as they plummet. They pitch framed and autographed photos of golf stars. With fawn-like caution, the daughter steps toward the edge, the brother right behind her, holding onto her coat. Underhanded, as if feeding a duck, she softly tosses the last trophy.
The mom is silent, stares at the ground, then yanks off her ring, steps to the edge, and throws it so hard her arm joints grunt with pain. The daughter claps, laughs. “Yeah, it is funny, right?” the mom says with a bent smile. Her eyes are rusted dark with sorrow.
The boy rushes to the CRV, comes loping back, waving a blue star and calls out, “Mom, do this one. I made it for him,” thinking his personal contribution, this extra show of solidarity, will make her happy.
As he is pushing it into her hands, she realizes what it is and starts to cry. No no, honey, not this one not — and that’s when they bobble it, that’s when it falls and she quick-steps back to bend and catch it; and she is gone.
He drops to his knees in front of his sister, his face shock white. She sees he is holding a plaster cast of his tiny handprint, painted blue and dusted with too much gold and silver glitter. She takes it from him, is mesmerized by all the tiny bits of glitter glittering in the sun.
Keith Woodruff lives in San Antonio, TX. His poetry has appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Sundog Lit, New World Writing Quarterly and Bear Review. His flash/micro appeared in lovely places like Wigleaf, Does it Have Pockets?, JMWW, Identity Theory, HAD, and is forthcoming in Pithead Chapel and FlashFlood. Read him in BSF 2017 and 2019. He was awarded a 2018 Pushcart prize. www.keithawoodruff.com.