Josh Jackson Author

Last week I issued a challenge: write a “trash story.” It’s a writing exercise where you spot a piece of garbage and come up with a story surrounding it.

I found my trash! It was an old sock, somehow ending up on a roadside.

And so I opened up Word to a blank document, and set my fingers to work. This is what resulted (1355 words, 8 mins read time):

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A flutter, a breeze, random as it curled around the pickup. Windy, from the west, gusts slapping the passenger side.

“I still can’t believe this.”

“I know. Sucks,” Steve spat.

“Did Jones get back to you?” The attorney. Low-cost, low-skilled.

“Yup.”

“And?”

“We’re screwed. Eviction goes through, we have to vacate. As of five o’ clock tomorrow.” Just twenty-four hours.

They turned the corner, the storage facility in sight a block away. Now heading west, into the wind, the breeze wrapped around the bed and bumper of the truck, fluttering the pile of stuff in there.

“At least we have the unit. And mom’s. Thank God she didn’t sell when Dad died,” Marcy said.

“Right? And here I was pushing her to unload the house. Shooting us right in the foot.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, we couldn’t have known. I thought she should sell too. Came close, remember that one offer?”

Steve shook his head as he pressed the brake and turned into the entrance of the fenced storage yard. Rows upon rows of low metal buildings, identical white plastic roll-up doors and faded decades-old yellow paint for several acres.

“Still blows me away. Place is worth two-fifty easy and he offers three fifty.”

Marcy chuckled fondly. “The look on his face that day. Mom, ‘My cats are buried here and I’ll be buried beside them.’ And polite as could be.”

Steve entered in their passcode, the high-pitched beeps announcing button presses. The gate crawled sideways, screeching with rusty metal rollers and rusty chain on rusty gears. The code-entry box was painted a bright high-viz yellow, but to no avail. The thing had a lean thanks to years of mirrors clipping it, the two protective bollards beside it, also yellow, bearing numerous scratches and patches of missing paint and even a dent in one of the concrete-filled steel tubes.

They pulled in, winding around the tomblike facility. No one else was around. It was close to five on a weekday, and in midwinter, almost dark already.

At unit five-sixty-six they stopped, the muttering of the older pickup’s engine falling silent.

Marcy wasted no time, jumping out and removing the disc lock from the latch. With a squeal of old plastic and a loud rattle, she threw the door up. A half-full ten-by-ten unit, boxes and totes and dust.

Steve had gone to the back of the truck and banged the tailgate down. He grabbed the first item, a thick lasagna of clothes on hangars, pulled in a bundle from the closet. He quickly stepped in and heaved them onto a

stack of totes.

It didn’t matter where things went as long as they went. They had at least one more trip, and then to pack up what they would live with at Mom’s house. They’d probably not even stay the last night in the apartment. It hadn’t been home, anyway. Just a stopover in the long journey of life.

“Let’s put the random stuff in first, and what we might come back for at the front,” Marcy told her husband. He nodded, heading to the truck as they started making trips.

Boxes of their life together, piles of stuff they didn’t have enough boxes for, small appliances, all haphazardly thrown in the truck. They’d been in a hurry, not sure if their attorney could prevent an immediate eviction. At least he’d bought them a day.

Marcy grabbed a pile of clothes, a heap of dirty stuff they’d allowed to accumulate in the closet. Good housekeeping was something neither her parents nor his had managed to instill in their kids. But at least they agreed that a messy house was just fine. Steve had lost roommates over his pigsty living, but Marcy had found it both endearing and relatable.

Too busy living to worry, they had a motto. “Screw the dishes, let’s have some fun!”

Marcy managed to get most of the clothes, struggling to see as the night came on. The outdoor lighting was yellow and poor. It made everything look gray. She didn’t notice the one black sock that ended up on the bumper, partially tucked under the tailgate.

The wind came up again, lifting her long brown hair away from her mid-back where it fell, lashing her about the face, looking like a tree in a tornado. She stepped to the truck cab and grabbed a knit hat, pulling it down over the crazed strands.

The sock on the bumper almost blew off, but the gust relented.

“Friggin’ wind!” Marcy complained.

“At least it’s not raining,” Steve said as he climbed into the truck bed and started moving stuff to the rear for unloading. Halfway there, and they’d loaded the easy things first, mostly boxes and totes, to save the easy part for last. He slid a tote with “KEEPSAKES FRAGILE” to the end, where Marcy grabbed it and quickly took it in.

“Still so damn cold!” Shivers, shudders. It was about thirty-five degrees, the wind chill icy. Gusts moaned around the metal walls.

“Almost there,” Steve said, shoving the last two totes to the tailgate. He hopped down, grabbing one. Marcy took the other, and they made the last trip in together. They stopped for a moment, catching their breath.

Marcy reached for him, and they embraced.

“I’m sorry, babe.” She sniffled against his chest in response. He gently smoothed her hair where it fell out of the hat and down the back of her neck.

“I know. And I’m sorry too. This is kind of on both of us, it’s not all you.” It was true, they’d co-screwed up.

They parted, Steve reaching out and wiping her tears. He was grimacing, but didn’t realize it.

“We’ll make it. This is just a speed bump,” she reassured him. And she believed it. They were tough enough. Just made some bad choices.

“Yeah,” Steve said. He looked around. “Well, time’s wasting. Let’s go get that last load in before the rain decides to stop being nice.”

“Yup,” Marcy said, giving a final sniffle. They went out, he heading to the truck’s cab and she rolling the door down and replacing the shiny chrome lock. It was full dark now, shadows everywhere. She didn’t notice the small black shape on the pickup’s rear bumper.

Steve started up the old beast and it grumbled back to life, sending out a cloud of blue smoke that looked a weird yellow-gray in the outdoor lighting. He reached over and took Marcy’s hand, interlacing their fingers.

The wind smacked another gust across the truck, rattling some debris against the faded and chipped blue paint job. At the gate, Steve again entered the code and the rusty gate shrieked its opening.

“Maybe we should call Mom and see if we can bring dinner. You know with company she’ll try to cook. Best to head that off now.”

Steve nodded agreement as he pressed the gas pedal, heading right, back to the almost-empty apartment. Where they would be completely unwelcome in just about exactly one day. They could see the neighborhood trees in silhouette, blowing side to side and shaking their bare limbs in the wind, looking like Marcy’s hair had a few minutes ago. Small drops splattered the windshield.

The sock wobbled, but with the wind now behind them, it was pressed against the tailgate briefly.

Steve chuffed. “She definitely seems to not realize she’s pushing a walker.”

“Mom’s tough, what can I say? But yeah, let’s see what’s up,” Marcy said, pulling out her phone.

Another gust, this time slightly from the south, whipped across the truck bumper. As Marcy hit “MOM” in her Contacts, the black fabric teetered, settled, and then one more good gust sent it airborne.

It took a brief arc under a small updraft, making it across the other lane and landing in a gravel parking area across from the storage facility. No streetlights were around to reveal it, a black lump in darkness and rain.

Raindrops started wetting it, weighing it down, and grit blew onto its damp surface.

The phone rang and rang. Marcy waited. Finally someone answered. An old voice.

“Hi mom, it’s us. We were wondering what you were doing for dinner…”