Matt Cowper - The Clerk

Outside, it was dark and cool. The burst of fresh, chill air cleared his head a little. Thomas zipped up his jacket, stuffed his hands in its pockets, and shuffled down the sidewalk. Morehead City’s nightlife was in full swing, which meant there were three other people visible. Overhead, the absurdly numerous six stoplights dangling above the half-mile of Morehead City’s downtown area showed green, and the train track running through the middle of the street headed with certainty to the port; it looked like an airport runway trailing off into the distance. A diesel truck rumbled past, its engine blatting out in a way its owner must have thought manly.

Thomas turned a corner, to the small lot where he’d parked. It was by the Amy Kirkpatrick Slade Park, which as far as Thomas could tell, was nothing more than a quarter-acre of grass ringed by crepe myrtles. As he fumbled with his keys, he saw Kara for the first time.

It was not the most captivating sight, and his beer goggles were firmly in place. She was kneeling by a black Honda Civic, lug wrench in hand, loosening lug nuts from the flat rear passenger tire. He saw a large, canyon-like buttcrack and a lower-back tattoo. (He’d later learn it was a red rose surrounded by thorns, because, as Kara put it, “I’m sweet as a rose, but thorny too, if you piss me off.”) Her upper arms, covered in a long-sleeved shirt, looked meaty. As he got closer, he thought he saw sweat on her neck and hair, despite the coolness. She looked to be in her mid-30s, though she would later claim to only be thirty-one. (Thomas, disbelieving this, had snuck a look at her driver’s license one day, and confirmed that she was indeed thirty-five.)

Thomas cleared his throat. He’d waited too long to approach the raven-haired woman in the bar, but this time would be different. There was no one else around, so that meant no competition, and no one who could snicker at him if he failed.

“Flat tire?” he asked.

Kara pivoted on a foot and looked up at him. The lug wrench was held mid-twist, like a clock that had stopped.

“Yes,” she replied blandly. “I must’ve run over a nail or something.”

Her face was slightly better. It was a bit too round and the nose was too stubby, but her skin was smooth and her thick lipstick-smothered lips would fit nicely around his penis.

“Need any help?” he asked. “I’m parked right here.”

“No, I think I got it.”

“Oh, come on, let me feel manly.”

Slowly she stood up. As she did so, her shirt rolled up a bit, revealing some chub. Thomas thought about telling her that she had a spare tire right around her midsection, so there was no need to use the donut that was lying on the ground, but he dismissed the thought as the wildly inappropriate silliness of a half-drunk man. She may have caught him looking at her belly, though, as she quickly pulled down her shirt and tucked some of it into her sweat pants.

“OK, if you really want to,” she said, handing him the lug wrench.

Thomas crouched down and inspected her handiwork. She’d loosened all the lug nuts save one. Disappointed, he went to work slowly, hoping to extend his period of usefulness. The girl crouched down beside him, getting her scissor jack into place.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Kara.”

He waited, but she didn’t ask for his.

Sharply: “I’m Thomas.”

Dully: “Nice to meet you.”

She said nothing more.

Who did this bitch think she was? What kind of conversation was this? He’d offered to help her, after all. She was like the girl in the bar: out of shape and no longer sexy, but still maintaining an aura of haughtiness and entitlement. Finished with the last lug nut, he angrily let the lug wrench drop, and was satisfied with the clatter it made when it hit the pavement.

As Kara started jacking up her Civic, though, Thomas tried to send some rational thoughts through the beery sloshing of his mind. He was the one who’d inserted himself into this situation, even though she’d said she didn’t need help. She was no damsel in distress. She was perfectly capable of changing a tire — though he noticed it was taking her forever to jack up her car. He needed to stop being a goddamn over-sensitive jackass and walk away.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Thomas said as evenly as he could. “Looks like you’ve got it handled.”

Kara stopped turning the jack and wiped some sweat from her forehead.

“You don’t have to leave,” she replied, the barest drop of emotion in her voice. “I’m glad for the help. Really. I’ve just got a lot on my plate, so I’m kinda exhausted and not feeling very talkative.”

Thomas stopped mid-step, torn between staying and leaving. It was usually like this: he approached a girl, and she recoiled — but if he then retreated, as it seemed the girl wanted him to do, all of a sudden she didn’t want him to leave. Thomas sighed and looked up at the dark sky. The lights of the town hid the stars, but the crescent moon was glowing softly. Thomas stared at it, but it had no answers for him, nor had it cast a romantic light on this encounter.

“What’s all on your plate?” he asked with trepidation, fearing he’d be assailed with a tale of incomparable woe.

“Well, I’ve got work, I’ve gotta take care of my kid, and now I’ve gotta deal with this, ” she said, pointing at the flat tire.

Thomas locked on to the word “kid.” Either this woman was already in a relationship, or she was a single mom. He was fairly certain it was the latter. He steered clear of single moms: they were more infantile than the children they tried to raise, more self-dramatizing than the most narcissistic Hollywood starlet, more clueless than the most sheltered agoraphobe. And he was not going to be a surrogate father or a stepdad. Even if he liked children, he wouldn’t become these things. But, as he didn’t like children, it made the decision even easier. Children were illogical and manic, and they grew up to be spiteful, arrogant teenagers — and then they became adults and left the nest, leaving an unfillable vacuum in their wake.

So he should have taken a bow and made his exit, but he’d apparently used up all his rational thoughts for the evening. The beer sloshed downwards, flooding the chambers that held his personal code, and submerging the humiliating memories of certain women that he would, if sober, have gripped tightly to dissuade him from acting foolish.

“Sounds rough,” he said with as much sincerity as he could muster. “Are you married, or…?”

“No, I’m a single mom.” She made it sound like the most important and righteous thing in the world. “Trying to raise my little boy. He’s my world, but he’s a handful, too.”

“The father…?”

“He’s a Marine. We were married a few years, but it didn’t work out.”

Of course. Why hadn’t he considered that sooner? This area was a wasteland of shattered relationships. There was Camp Lejeune over in Jacksonville, and the air station up at Cherry Point, both belonging to the Marines, the most idiotic branch of the military. Between these two bases, there were enough gullible hayseeds for pretty much every woman who wanted one. Being hayseeds, they didn’t know how to handle themselves when money (and its camp followers, women) came their way. After they got pulled into marriage and had a few kids, the wife invariably decided to leave them, to their bafflement. Thomas could easily recall the empty machismo certain Marines had spewed as they tried to convince others that they were the ones who’d actually done the dumping. It was pathetic, like a child trying to convince his parents that he’d beaten up the school bully, when his bloody nose and blackened eye clearly told a different tale.