The Lincoln by Hermon Joyner

Here is a short piece of fiction I recently wrote. Enjoy.

The man on the corner was waiting for the walk signal.

The man on the corner stepped up to the curb as the rusted Lincoln sedan turned in front of him. In the car, another man drove the former luxury car and tilted his upper body into the curve, both hands on the wheel, his face turned to the woman next to him. His smile was caught halfway between pleasure and cruelty, curling up on one side into a leer, not at all Elvis-like. His eyes narrowed in calculation.

The man on the corner wondered what the other man thought.

The woman pushed into the door away from the man on the long bench seat, her low V-cut top revealing a fleshy crevasse. Her arm was outside of the car, hand flat against the side of the door. Her eyes closed, her head thrown back and tilted towards the outside in silent laughter, her neck curled back over the headrest.

The man on the corner wondered what had been said and what had been heard.

As the Lincoln made its closest approach, the man on the corner heard the repetitive woofing of its stereo system. No music made it out of the car’s interior, even though the windows were rolled down, but the displaced air of the thumping bass sounded like loose, airy raspberries delivered by a chorus of old men.

The man on the corner wondered what music played inside the car.

The tires of the Lincoln chirped softly as they kissed the curb in front of the man on the corner. The rust stains on the side of the car erupted from underneath the paint and overflowed the dark blue in spills of brown and orange. A missing strip of molding on the back quarter panel showed as an outline of dirt and unfilled holes in the blue paint.

The man on the corner looked down at his feet, the curb, the Lincoln—so close.

The man on the corner looked into the eyes of the woman, an arm’s reach away. The corners of her mouth twitched downward as her eyes widened. Then her eyes shut and she laughed concussively, curling towards the dash, and her laugh reached the ears of the man on the corner like smoke in wind—insubstantial and fleeting.

The man on the corner remembered riding in cars with women on summers long ago.

The man on the corner blinked, the Lincoln was gone, and he stepped off the curb.