The rusted brown Jeep Wagoneer had been sitting in the yard between his parent’s house and his house for decades. Phil felt a unfamiliar sense of excitement as he considered it. He had just chased a cat across the lawn and it had run under the truck. Phil was going to find it. He took a few drags off his cigarette and puzzled it out.
Phil thought the first place the cat would go is into the engine area. He opened the driver’s side door and pulled the lever that popped the hood. He put his cigarette out in the broken ash tray inside. He walked around to the front of the Jeep, and retrieved and lit another cigarette. He took a few drags and blew them out the right side of his mouth. He squinted as he lifted the hood. He put the lever that the held the hood in place in place, smoke filling his eyes, making him squint even more. Phil put his head under the hood and looked.
He looked and saw his life. He saw no job, no hope, no girlfriend, no future. He looked and felt himself melting into dark spaces between the metal and old grease. He looked and felt the cold air of winter, and the lovely smell of smoke, and —
“Phil! What the fuck you doing there?”
Phil pulled his head out and looked across the grassy yard toward his parent’s house. His father was walking toward him.
“How many times I have to tell you don’t touch my Jeep?”
Phil leaned against the front of the Jeep and smoked, staring at his dad.
“What you doing with that hood open, huh? You smoking your crack in there or something?”
Phil’s dad walked up to the Jeep, and put his hands on the front, and looked into the engine. Phil didn’t move aside for him. He saw his mother in a white nightgown standing on the porch of his parent’s house with her arms crossed looking at the two of them.
“You know this engine is a working engine, don’t you? Good as new. Don’t try to do nothing to it. What were you doing here with it?”
Phil smoked.
“Answer me goddammit!”
Phil’s dad slammed his the hood down, making Phil jump. Phil flung his cigarette into the yard and started walking away. His dad ran in front of him, and put his fingers on Phil’s chest.
“Tell me what you were doing with my Jeep.”
Phil looked at this dad’s arm. He thought about grabbing his dad’s fingers and breaking them and leaving this town as a fugitive.
“There was a cat. Leave me alone.”
“A cat?”
“Yeah, a cat. I chased it across the yard. It ran into the truck.”
His dad dropped his hand, put his hand on his hips, and looked off into the forest that loomed over all the houses on this street. Jim saw the cigarette butt he had thrown in a grass, and he picked it up, and walked home.
