We are excited to announce the fiction winner of the November 2024 Chattanooga Writers’ Guild Monthly Contest is James Brumbaugh with the submission “Crushed” and runner-up is Alex Scott with the submission “Precipitation.” This month’s theme was “Crush”. Thanks to all who participated. And thank you to our fiction judge, Alexandria Kelly!
Crushed
You find out she’s dead from the newspaper. It’s Christmas Day and you’re at the table in your mom’s house, stuffing yourself with slices of leftover ham sandwiched between halves of crescent rolls. Your mom lays the newspaper down next to your plate, opened to the obituaries. And there she is, K Smith. Thinner than you remember and with a shaved head. Cheeks no longer plump, but the smile is still there, the eyes that make you feel like there’s a secret somewhere, a joke you don’t get.
The obit says she returned to the Lord. Cancer, doesn’t say what kind. You think of all the cigarettes you smoked with her, all the money she bummed off you for a pack of reds, and feel a pang of guilt. Thirty year olds aren’t supposed to get cancer, aren’t supposed to die. She’d become a nun, just like she’d always wanted, had been diagnosed in the German convent where she’d worked. Came back home to die. And now here she is in black and white.
You haven’t spoken to her in three years. You remember exactly the last time you talked to her, a short conversation after your father died. Told her all about it, didn’t know who else to tell. With everyone else, you felt the need to posture, the need to act unbothered. But K had known you.
The rest of the day is a blur. Christmas stuff, the same kind of thing she would have hated, the kind of stuff that was a distraction from, whatever, contemplating the birth of God. When you open presents you think of the day you lost her virginity to her, how she’d pulled you into evening mass, how she had gone to confess, how she wouldn’t hold your hand. You think of sitting on a bench, fidgeting with your promise ring while she was in the room of contemplation, eyes unwaveringly on the cross.
You look at your mom while she picks up the ripped up wrapping paper and remember how she had always disapproved of K. How she’d told you that it was inappropriate, a nineteen year old dating a fourteen year old. The way she’d looked at you and asked what she could possibly want from a relationship with someone so much younger than her. But you were special, your connection had been special.
K had dismissed your mother’s concerns out of hand as racism. She was black, you’re white, it’s Mississippi. People are going to stare, people are going to disapprove. The world encircles you, tries to break what you have, tries to make you conform.
You look at your gifts all lined up in a neat row. An electric shaver, a new coat, about a pound of Christmas tree Reese’s cups. On your fifteenth birthday she’d given you a CD, Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin. You’d never really listened to rock music before, another new experience, as new as touching her body had been.
You’d met her at a theater camp, the yearly conference of the Mississippi Theater Association. An elderly Lebanese couple had driven a group up from Biloxi all the way to the W, the Mississippi University for Women, all the way in Columbus. Ten kids packed into an RV, but you only saw her. A graduating senior in high school, and you were only about to start ninth grade the following year. You’d never seen a girl like her, brash and loud and rough, a girl with an edge, a girl who cursed and smoked and listened to metal. You were in love.
K had been there to perform a monologue. Hundreds of kids participated, performing in front of an audience of other theater kids, and, more importantly, the theater directors of all the major colleges in the state. When you walk the dog with your mother and make idle chitchat, you try and remember what she had performed, but it won’t come. What you do remember is sitting in the back row, manfully hiding your tears as she performed.
During the next few days, you drive around town, and you always end up in places that remind you of her. The Lynn Meadows Discovery Center, where you had performed so many plays in the open air. She had always come see you perform, just like you’d always come to see her perform in her plays at the local community college. Out back of Lynn Meadows is the tiny submarine where she took your virginity one evening after play practice.
Eventually, you make it to her neighborhood, without even really noticing that you were driving in that direction. You park your car and get out, walk down her street. Her mother is sitting on the porch of her house, dressed in sweats and a button up pajama top. She’s smoking a cigarette. Without thinking you walk up the drive, pulling your cigarettes out of your shirt pocket.
She looks at you skeptically. “Hello,” she says. Her voice is hoarser than you remember, smaller, the passage of years and the loss of a child had robbed her of her robustness.
“Hi,” you say. “I’m one of K’s friends.”
She smiles. “Everyone was a friend of K’s. I’ve had more friends of K’s pass by here in the past few days than I’ve had visitors in the last twenty-five years I’ve lived here. Should have come after the funeral, place was overstuffed, busting at the seams with friends of K’s.”
“Don’t know if you remember me, I was here all the time. My name is Frank, she used to call me Francis. I was her boyfriend in high school, or I was in high school. She was in college by then.”
She squeezes her cigarette between her lips, pushes her glasses further up her nose. “Boyfriend? I’m sorry, son. I don’t remember any boyfriends.”
“No need to be sorry,” you say, although truth be told, her words had hurt you. You’d thought of yourself as a fixture in this house, a part of the fabric of daily life. “I just wanted to know, or rather, wanted to tell you, that I’m very sorry for your loss.”
You sit there in silence with her, she has nothing to say to you, you have nothing to say to her. Once upon a time you’d thought that she’d be your mother-in-law. But that was a long time ago.
You’re at Skeeter’s bar, down by the train tracks. There’s smoke in the air, this is one of the last places in the city you can smoke inside. You’ve lost count of the beers that have passed through your hands. The ashtray in front of you is full. And then you see Mal.
Mal was two years older than you, a friend you had shared with K. You’d had lunch with her every day in the library, two theater kid dork outcasts sharing their loneliness. Time has been kind to her, kinder than it’s been to you. She hasn’t changed a bit.
You sidle up to her. She sees you and her face momentarily brightens.
“Francis, been a long time. Ten years, what? Are we old enough to have friends we haven’t seen in ten years?”
“God, it hasn’t been quite that long I hope. But thereabout, I guess.”
You catch up for a while. She lives in Oregon, has a husband and a house full of kids.
“I guess you heard about K,” you say.
“Actually, that’s why I’m here. For the funeral.”
“Wish I could have gone, but I just found out. But, Jesus, what do ex-boyfriends even do at funerals?”
She snorts. “Boyfriend? You, boyfriend?”
You look at her, you’re shocked, your heart breaks a little. “Yeah, we dated for like three years. She was my girlfriend, like, all through high school. Don’t you remember all the times I talked about her? Talked about us together?”
She looks at you with a pained expression. “Francis, she was five years older than you. She was in college when you were a freshman. You didn’t think you were her boyfriend, did you? I mean, that’d be,” she takes a long drink from her beer, “that’d be sick.”
“She was my girlfriend, Mal. She told me, she told me we’d get married one day. She took my virginity for Christ’s sake.”
“Jesus, Francis. I didn’t know. You know, she always talked like you were a puppy, following her around. Always told us, you know, friendships look different to different people. That you just had, like, you know, just a crush. I always took what you said at lunch as like, a kid with a big crush.”
After that, there’s not much more to say, so you just go home.
James Brumbaugh is a writer in Chattanooga. He’s a father and loves to pump iron.
PRECIPITATION
It rained the whole first day of school, not that Stephen was paying much attention to the weather. He was starting eighth grade, and on top of getting the fearsome Mr. Halsey as his Social Studies teacher, and taking Algebra when he wasn’t sure he was ready for it, he had Heidi Sloane in nearly all his classes.
Just seeing her brown ponytail and her silver braces as she entered homeroom was enough to cause a thunderclap in his heart. He’d spent the whole summer rehearsing how he’d confess his feelings to her, only for such words to wash down the drain as soon as she appeared. What could he say with so many people around to watch and listen?
The storm outside was so thick it blocked the view through the windows. It only let up when Stephen got in his dad’s car and went home, but it came back every day that week–sometimes a gentle shower, sometimes a massive downpour.
On Saturday, he and his friend Brent biked together to Heller Park. The weather app on Brent’s phone predicted a clear, sunny day, and sure enough, the sky was a solid blue. They found a clear spot on the field and started tossing a Frisbee.
Stephen leapt up to catch one of Brent’s throws, and on his way back down, he noticed a familiar brown ponytail down the field. He froze in place with the Frisbee locked in his fingers.
Brent saw Heidi and waved to her. She headed toward them, holding a drawing pad.
Was it Stephen’s imagination, or was that cloud not up there a moment ago?
“Hey, Brent,” she said. “Hey, Stephen.”
Something wet dropped onto Stephen’s head.
“Wasn’t expecting to see you here,” Brent said. “Were we, Steve?” He glanced over. “Steve?”
Stephen simply nodded silently.
“Well, my sister likes the playground,” Heidi said. “I thought I’d do some sketching as long as I was–“
A spot appeared on the cover of her drawing pad. She swung her eyes up. The sky had turned gray, and a drizzle was starting to dot everyone’s clothes.
“Oh come on,” she said, “I just got here!”
Stephen muttered a “Sorry” that no one heard.
“How could the weather be so wrong?” Brent said.
“I know, right?” Heidi said. “Normally I love it when it rains, but ever since school started, it’s just been ridiculous.”
The rain deepened as her sister ran up to call her to her parents’ car. Stephen and Brent had to go, too… and they didn’t have a car to keep them dry.
But it cleared up on the way home. They grabbed some towels and went to Stephen’s room to rest.
“Heidi was right,” Brent said. “This is ridiculous.”
“I guess so.”
Brent began to stare at Stephen. “What’s with you? You’ve been a zombie ever since Heidi–” Slowly, like a flowing pool of water, a smile spread across his face. “Oh, I get it. I thought you turned a little red when she showed up.” He slapped Stephen on the shoulder. “You should’ve said something sooner! I’ll be happy to help any way I can.”
“It’s not like that! I don’t need any help!”
“Yeah, sure. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have clammed up at the park. Too bad she’s cursed.”
“What?”
“Just something that hit me on the way back. Seems like every time she shows up, it starts storming. Then it stops when we go home.”
“Oh come on,” Stephen said. “It obviously isn’t raining everywhere she goes. I think you’re seeing a pattern where it doesn’t exist.”
“Like you liking Heidi?”
“Shut up.”
The theory did hit a snag on Monday when Stephen was dismissed in the afternoon for a dental appointment. “This time it stopped when you left,” Brent said on the phone after school.
Stephen had tried not to notice. “So now you’re saying I’m cursed.”
“I don’t know about cursed. Maybe…” Brent went quiet for a moment. “Tomorrow, try putting off going to homeroom as much as possible.”
“This is stupid, Brent.” But Stephen did it anyway. He let Brent go ahead, then waited by his locker until the clock at the end of the hall said 8:29.
His eyes briefly met Heidi’s as he entered, and the shower started as the bell rang.
“I think you’re on to something,” he told Brent at lunch. “It’s me. But it’s also her. It’s raining whenever we’re in the same place. What’m I supposed to do?”
“Got me, dude. Just look.” Brent gestured to the window. “You’ve got a whole cafeteria between you, and now you can hardly tell it’s raining at all. I want to help, but if you two get together, who knows? It might cause a hurricane or a tornado or something.”
“So I guess I might as well avoid her.” Stephen couldn’t even finish his lunch after saying that. He could hardly remember the last time he’d thought about anything but her. She meant more to him than any grades, any achievement, any goal in the world. How could he shut down a longing like this?
As if to draw a bold line under his decision, Heidi went to the girls’ P.E. class, and the sun shone through the window. The rain returned with her, and left when she went home.
It seemed it would continue that way, until later that week, when Mr. Halsey started everybody on a group project about ancient Babylon. And he assigned the groups randomly. Brent wound up with some guys from the basketball team. Stephen wound up with Leigh Sydney and Heidi Sloane.
The rain began to block the view as she sat down beside him. “So which topic do you want to work on–Art? Commerce? Politics?”
“I vote art,” Leigh Sydney said. “Money stuff puts me to sleep.”
“Fine with me,” Stephen muttered.
“Guess it’s unanimous, then,” Heidi said. “I’ll draw one of those funky-looking statues for the poster. Steve, you want to scribe for us?”
A flash of white filled the room, and thunder charged by like a stampede.
“Seriously?” Heidi said. “Can’t we just have one nice day for a change?”
Stephen tried to keep his head down and focus on jotting down what the girls researched, but Heidi was so close he could smell her fragrance. The storm was getting worse. Through the smeared raindrops hammering on the window, a huge oak tree was swaying to and fro. There seemed to be only one way to stop this, but Mr. Halsey would hardly let him go home just because it was raining.
Then everything went dark. The only light came from the screens of Chromebooks still running on batteries.
Stephen didn’t move. Beside him, Heidi’s face gently gleamed in the light of her Chromebook. She had clicked a link, but it only brought up a white screen with a small pixelated dinosaur.
With no light inside or out, hardly anybody could see anybody else. And with the idea that had just flickered to Stephen’s mind, no one would hear, either. “Heidi,” he said, “may I see that?”
“Sure.” She turned the screen toward him.
The rain and thunder softened. The tree outside had settled down; only the branches and leaves were moving.
He opened a writing program and typed: I have something I want to tell you.
He showed it to her. She typed: What is it?
He tried to write something grand and poetic and romantic, but after two tries, he settled on: I really like you. Do you like me?
When he turned the screen back to her, he thought he saw a grin form around the glitter of her braces.
A ray of daylight broke through the clouds, through the window, into the classroom.
Alex Scott is a writer, artist, and Orthodox Christian who has lived in Chattanooga his whole life. His work has appeared in Factor Four Magazine and Dragon Gems, and his novel Feast of the Sisters is available from Park End Books. Currently he is working as a substitute teacher.is a writer in Chattanooga.
Facebook: alex.scott.180410
Substack: wordassociations.substack.com
The Monthly Contests rotate through a pattern of Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Nonfiction throughout the year, with a new theme each month. Go to the 2024 Monthly Contest Series Info page to view the genre and theme for each month.
This contest is free to enter for members of the Chattanooga Writers’ Guild. To become a member, click HERE
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