by Joe Gribble
The Black Van
By David Jensen
Copyright 2017 by David Jensen
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This novel (short story) is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
1.
Sarah was driving to the shopping mall in Casper Wyoming to get the birthday present for their daughter Janice, and on the eternally long drive into the downtown area she had started reminiscing about how her life had became so prosaic, complacent, and as of late, full of volatile marital arguments. Her childhood was plagued with the insanities and mishaps of their family, which had slowly fallen apart to become the constant talk of the neighbors in the mountainous area of West Virginia.
When she was about the age of seven, her oldest brother had been sent to prison after shooting a game warden by mistake while Deer hunting. The problem was that at the time he was stoned and drunk, and at a distance of fifty yards he shot the game warden that was at that time of year when Deer hunters flocked into the woods, wearing a neon colored green and yellow striped jacket and hat. The court had shown no leniency and her brother had gotten a twenty year sentence for manslaughter. It was catastrophic for their mother and also the first event which had slowly led to her demise.
At around the age of twelve, her next older brother was diagnosed with multiple personalities, and a few of them were sadistically cruel and dangerous. After switching personas during an appointment one day at the Psychotherapist, he attempted to rape the well meaning doctor. When that didn’t work, his cruel persona decided to strangle her and then splayed her naked body on her office desk for the next poor person to find when they entered her office for their appointment. Her brother was thereafter committed to an institution for an unlimited sentence and their family was once again in the spotlight of the surrounding communities. Her father had taken to drinking and naturally started to frequent either of the two bars in the area, only to get involved in bar room brawls whenever someone started to face him with the facts of his two incarcerated sons. That is when he started to spend many a night in the county jails drunk tank, so he could repeat the process a few days later on. He had never laid a hand on her mother as far as she had known, but now her mothers psyche had three deep scars which wouldn’t ever heal, and then one day when Sarah was already sixteen, her mother decided to climb into the bathtub so as not to make a mess all over the floor as she slit her wrist over and over with a razor blade from her husbands shaver. Sarah remembers clearly to this day how the county coroner had laughed and commented that women always do it somewhere so there is the least amount of mess for others to clean up afterwards.
After that day it was only the two of them in the big house and her father had now only one purpose in life, which was to stay continually drunk, 24/7. And for her it was either being at home, constantly doing the housework or taking hour long walks in the mountains to escape the virtual prison which her home had then become. When she had heard that the little restaurant up on the hiking trail needed a waitress to help out in the high seasons of spring till the end of October, she took a chance, applied for the job and to her surprise was hired. When she had told her father the good news that evening he was furious. They argued back and forth, and he had founded all of his arguments on his theory that the boss would soon be bedding her and also the fact that she would be making less than the minimum wage required by law. It was the first and only time she had fought with her father and she had only won the argument with him when she made the ultimatum that either she was allowed to work there or she would leave home and never set a foot in the house again. Later on in the evening, as her father had downed the last swig of his bottle of Capt. Black whiskey, he finally gave up the fight and told her to ‘go to hell if she so wants to’. She had fought and won the battle, and didn’t have to give up the secret that her new boss was also a homosexual who wouldn’t look twice at a naked woman even if he was forced to! And she didn’t care much about the meager pay because he was giving her a chance to work, even though her family had become the pariahs of the mountains. Her new boss’s advice to her was to use only her first name on the waitress shirt and never to give up her last name to anyone who didn’t already know it. He wasn’t born and raised here in the mountains but he sure had learned the cultural obstacles pretty quick! In his case it was either that or become the receiving end of some country hicks tire iron, and that was exactly why he understood Sarah’s situation so well. She wasn’t the one who brought shame on the family and therefore deserved a chance at life.
2.
The months had gone by and because the locals didn’t frequent the restaurant, she was just another beautiful courteous young lady in a restaurant. And she had already built up a good reputation amongst the tourist who repeatedly stopped by for something to eat before they hit the wandering trails which wound throughout the Appalachian mountainsides. Then one day she heard a man talking outside while she was in the kitchen preparing the orders to be brought out to the tourist, and something in the mellifluous sounding voice sounded to her like angels were singing inside of her. When she brought the plates out to the terrace, she seen him, and at that moment she realized why she was on the face of this earth in the first place. To her he looked like a god in the disguise of a man and when he turned to her and smiled, it was as if she was absorbed by his beauty. She also had a strange feeling in her stomach like she never had before, and it felt like heaven. When they had finished and had gone off to wander along the trails, she had at first felt depressed that he had not asked for her phone number or something, anything so she would at least know that he was also interested in her. Then after a few weeks had gone by and she had almost forgotten about him, (although during the nights in bed she did have her fantasies), the telephone on the wall of the restaurant had rang, and when she had answered with the expectations of taking a reservation for the lunch hour, his voice came through the phone and immediately asked how she was doing. It was like the voice was a hand which now strangled her, for she was so enthralled to hear him that she couldn’t get a single word out of her mouth. It was only when she heard him apologize and that maybe he shouldn’t have called her that she quickly found her speech again and had said; “Just hearing your voice again makes me feel like I’m in heaven!”
His name was Steven and he had asked her if she could get the next Saturday off from work so they could wander the trails together, and without even asking her boss, she immediately said yes. It was a day that she would never forget as she walked with him throughout the trails. He was such a good listener and as the hours passed by, she had opened up to him and as it all poured out of her like a damned up flood, he learned all of the nasty secrets of her family, which didn’t seem to bother him at all, for at least she had some sort of family. He had no family anymore after a tragic car accident many years ago had left him unscathed, while decimating the rest of his family. By the time they came back to the restaurant dusk had come and passed, and they were walking hand in hand as if it was a normal thing. Steven had then asked her to come and visit him down in Morgantown where he had an apartment while he was finishing his last semester studying Electrical Engineering at the West Virginia University. She was then wondering how he could afford that, and seeing the question in her eyes, had said; “Life insurance!” Then he hopped into his Ford truck and left.
It was a long lonely week f
or her. Every night when she went home she seen that the only thing that was left of their home was a drunkard for a father, and the seed of an idea grew inside her head. On the following Saturday morning a decision was made, and she boarded a Greyhound bus instead of going to work, with the knowledge that she would never look back, regardless of what the future had in store for her in her life. For a mountain girl she had found his apartment pretty easily in the city jungle! So when he had answered the door dressed in only his underwear, she jumped into his arms and kicked the door shut at the same time. It became the door to her new home.
She had acquired a few odd jobs here and there making minimum wage, (which was still lots more than she was used to making without tips), until his semester was finished with his degree in the hand, and then they married before taking off for Wyoming, where his father had left him with a house on Archery Road close to Casper mountain. They had talked it over but she had said that wherever he went would be her home. That and the
