Idiot Men by Scott Gould

Author:Scott Gould [Gould, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vine Leaves Press
Published: 2023-11-07T09:17:29+00:00

Fred says it was quiet under Betty’s shirt, but maybe, just maybe….

Laurie smiles and tells the camera not to expect her to get naked every time they get together then stretches and slips her sports bra over her shoulders.

Betty says she can tell you what it is like to be dead and brought back to life.

And that was it. A running time just shy of four minutes. Gable watched it a couple of times before he output the digital video to a CD. Once it burned, he labeled it with a Sharpie: Gable’s Love Movie. He didn’t have any spare jewel cases, so he found a music CD he never listened to and threw the cover art and the lyric sheets in the trash.

He drove to Hollis’s duplex and spent several minutes deciding if he really wanted to leave the CD for his ex-wife. It was almost five in the morning. He sat in the shadows on her curb. He knew his little movie said something important to Hollis, but he was sure she wouldn’t get it. She wouldn’t recognize love. She wouldn’t understand the suffocation. Gable wasn’t even sure he understood his footage, didn’t know if the CD meant he was over Hollis or just beginning to realize he never would be. At least he could breathe better now. A breeze suddenly sprang up, chattering the leaves in the pin oaks and poplars that canopied the street.

Okay, Gable thought, maybe it’s all those things. You cover a mouth, yet someone survives. Babies leave a scar on you as they enter the world. You throw a switch, and your thumb burns forever. The person you least want to leave says she has to go and the best you can do is watch her go down the driveway.

Gable climbed back in his car and drove toward home. He slowed at the curb in front of the Randalls’ house. For a second, he thought of sailing the CD into their yard like the morning paper, leaving it for Fred to find after dawn. Let him figure out what to do with it, Gable thought. Instead, he continued to roll quietly, winding through the streets toward Laurie’s house, thinking he would leave it in her mailbox. Let her see what the local Spielberg turned out. Maybe one night they could watch it together on the plaid couch. But he never so much as tapped the brake.

When he found himself reaching for the blinker yet again, he realized he was driving odd circles around and around his own neighborhood, Gable’s Love Movie still sitting on the seat next to him, still waiting for someone to watch it.

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