I was having an ADHD moment and couldn’t do anything but jump from task to task without completing anything, until I ran across my old school folder. I have a Bachelors Degree in Creative writing. This was a flash fiction assignment that I had to stay under 1000 words to tell a story. I guess 1260 was okay, since I did get a good score. Anyway, this was the story:
Go Jump Off a Bridge
By Sylvia Gillespie
“When she told you to go jump off a bridge, this it not what she meant!” Jacob yelled over the bridge down to where Brandon was a standing on the scaffolding, watching the foamy brown water speed along below him with a crazy grin on his face.
“Then she should have been more specific don’t you think?” Brandon asked.
“You know your Mom was your age when she was raped and ended up with you. She kept you because she loves you and she is working crazy hours to support you. This is a piss poor way to repay her don’t you think?”
“She’s the one that said-“
“If she was being serious, which she wasn’t, she meant the bridge by your house, where you could jump in and cool off. Not up here where you are going to die trying to make her feel bad! I bet she already feels bad! She’s been up for a week straight trying to do finals so she can get a better job to put you through college. Now get back there and apologize for pouring your breakfast all over her final project!” Jacob ordered.
“Are you my best friend or my daddy? Because right now you suck at both! Mom was out of line to say I can’t get that Chevy!”
“Oh that’s it!” Jacob jumped the railing and climbed down to hop on the same support beam Brandon was standing on. “My father beat the crap out of my mother every morning until she figured out he was worthless and left so he started beating me instead. Your mother was the only one to give me a couch to sleep on and your pissed at her for not spending your future on a beat-up old car?!” He shoved Brandon hard enough to make him teeter on the edge of scaffolding.
“Fine.” Brandon chuckled as he recovered his balance and then shoved his friend back in a playful manner that only made Jacob angrier. “You keep her and I’ll drown so you can live happily ever after.” Jacob took a swing at Brandon who dodged just barely.
“She doesn’t love me. She loves you! She puts up with me so that you’ll be happy but you are never happy. You are just a spoiled child crying because Mommy can’t afford to buy you every stupid toy that sparks your fancy.”
“A car is not a toy. It’s freedom from this hole-“
“What? You want to drive some old car to the next city and live in the slums there instead? Like living another twenty miles down the road is going to change anything. Your Mom’s taken such good care of you your whole life that you have no idea how to take care of yourself! You know what? Why don’t you go? Maybe learn how to man up and start taking some responsibility?”
“You shut up.” All humor lost, Brandon grabbed Jacob by the shoulders to shake him, “Its not like your Mr. Responsible! You get fired every five minutes! How are you supporting anyone?”
“I’m not!” He shoved Brandon back, again making him wobble on the edge a moment, but this time Brandon pounced back on Jacob and they tussled on the edge. “I am nothing! I will always be nothing! No one loves me. You have it all, and you treat it like garbage!”
“She is stressed all the time, just yelling and screaming and nit-picking! I cant live with it any more! I cant.”
“Then get a job and help her! Clean up after yourself and shut up when she is studying. I bet she’ll calm down! She was never like this until you started high school!”
“What do you know, she’s always-“ but it was that moment that Brandon lost his footing and fell. He grabbed Jacob for support. Jacob tried to grab the bridge to brake their fall but his arm was fowled in Brandon’s so they both fell. Brandon yelled in the weightlessness but Jacob held his breath, closed his eyes and twisted them so their feet hit the water first.
The water was cold and disgusting but after grabbing each other’s arms for a moment and finding they were both unharmed, they both laughed and relaxed into the swift current that was whisking them away.
“Ok, ok I wont get a car!” Brandon yelled, “You don’t need to kill me!”
“Well you weren’t jumping off the bridge fast enough so I thought I would help.”
“I knew it.” He punched Jacob’s shoulder hard enough to splash both of them in the face. They sputtered, wiped their eyes and laughed some more.
“Like it matters, the treatment plant is down there.” He commented.
“Oh, we’ll get out before the next bridge. Remember that tree we chopped down when we were ten?”
“Of course,” Jacob rolled his eyes, “It was some historically ancient tree protected by law! We spent the night in a jail cell waiting for my drunk dad to claim us so we wouldn’t have to tell your mom!”
“We can snag onto that and climb out!”
“Your plans were always the best plans. What did high school do to you man?”
“So now I’m a man?”
“Oh come on. You were always the calm one, how in the world did you become so touchy.”
“Maybe I just miss how things were before mom went back to school.”
“Two more years man, just two. Her plans are sound you know they are. Two years and she might get you out of this hole.” He gestured back toward their home.
“Us man. Us. You are my brother. She’ll care for you until her last breath. You are family.”
Jacob glanced down the river. “If we live…”
“We will brother, we always do.”
May 12th, 2013
