Mordechai Stone

Contempt never breeds with familiarity

The Box, Part 6

“We’ll take your piece of shit car,” he said to me as I stood in the dark. Grateful not to be hanging from the hook I followed him to my ride.

My car was a piece of shit but no one likes hearing that about his ride. If you think I expressed my displeasure then you obviously need to reread the part about how Fuck Me Eddy got his moniker.

Fuck Me Eddy never let anyone drive him. Knowing this I held out my keys. He looked at me like I’d grown an extra head.

“How can I hold onto the box if I’m driving, fucknuts?”

That’s when it clicked. Junior considered the box so important Eddy had to hold onto it until we’d driven to wherever we were going. We climbed in my Chevy Monza and left Junior’s house. We drove in silence Eddy cradling the box in his lap. Eddy hated music so we sat there listening to the wind come in the windows. Finally, bored out of my mind, I did one of the stupidest things I’d done in my life to that point.

“So, Eddy, what’s in the box?”

Eddy stared at me with that stone psycho look in his eyes.

“You sure you want to know?”

Right then I came to the conclusion that the last thing I ever wanted to know in my entire life was what Junior’s box contained.

“Uh, no Eddy. I don’t want to know what’s in the box.”

“You sure?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’m, uh, sure I don’t want to know. None of my business.”

“Because I’ll tell you,” he offered in his friendliest voice.

I shook my head. “No, Eddy. I’m really sure I don’t want to know what’s in the box.”

Eddy gazed out of the front window. “If you change your mind let me know, fucknuts, and I’ll tell you what’s in the box.”

We drove on through the Texas night Eddy holding the box, me terrified he might ask me again if I wanted to know what was in the box.

Categories: Short Stories

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