Shame: The Steering Wheel Incident

My wife thinks it's a good idea to share something funny here, before posting some of my other short stories. That is, she says that my horror story is too dark, and many of my short stories are fan-fiction, and she really, really, really wanted me to start off with something that shared a bit of my sense of humor, albeit generally dark humor, before sharing samplings of my other work.

This "episode" is a short story from what I'm currently calling "S.O.S.: The Unusual Life of Seamus Orly Stickman." It is a planned collection of short stories which chronicle unfortunate events in the life of a character named Seamus, whom has come to be known as "Shame."

Quickly, too, I want to stress that while I'm delighted to share some of my work on this blog, I will not be posting each of Shame's stories here. His misfortunes, after all, are intended to be a collection in a book. ;)

This short story, a sampling of Shame, is about 1,100 words, is currently in it's second draft, and entitled "The Steering Wheel Incident."

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    Seamus’ first car was something of a character in its own right. It was temperamental, quirky, and prone to a condition known as vapor locking. The little blue car experienced heat from the engine so great that the gasoline in the fuel line became vapor before ever reaching the engine, which is so thin, the engine lacked the fuel to continue running. In the heat, Seamus’ first car often reacted as if it was out of gas. The antics of the car often left Seamus waiting in parking lots, on the side of the road or other unusual places – waiting for the fuel to cool and return to a liquid state – sometimes for hours. As a result of this, in the hottest months Seamus would have to turn the heater on full blast to cool the engine enough to keep it running, smothering himself in constant oven-like heat despite the ninety degree, or worse, heat of the summer.

    This was a problem that plagued Seamus on many, many occasions and given the misanthropic nature of the vehicle, it would choose the absolute worst moments in which to break down. There was the time that it decided to die for over half an hour directly in front of a public bus picking up students from a major university. The time that it vapor locked in the left-hand turn lane of a major intersection during rush hour.

    Of course, Seamus would never, ever forget the time that it seized three times on prom night, once on his way to retrieve his tuxedo from the rental place, once on the way back home from the tuxedo rental place, and again when he had to cross from the northern part of town to the far southern part of town to pick up his date.

    As a result of his vehicle’s peculiar habits, temperament, and bizarre ability to discern the absolute worst moments to become a two thousand pound paperweight, it was decorated with the remnants of Seamus’ despair and rage. Dents and scratches mired the surface of the old blue jackass.

    Then came the day when Shame was on his way back to his friend Allen’s house way on the other side of town. They had just finished with a particularly vicious bout of table tennis at a local arcade/laser tag place. It was a typical hot day in mid-August. The temperature was pushing one hundred degrees, and as was usual, Shame was blasting hot air through his vehicle’s vents, bathing Allen and himself in blistering heat. As was also usually the case, the open windows provided little respite from the hot air since one hundred degree ambient temperatures rarely cools anyone down.

    They were just approaching the turn off to Allen’s house when the all too familiar sputtering and jerking wracked Shame’s car. Instantly, all the anger and hatred Shame had ever felt for his car’s issues boiled to the surface and he began shouting at the accursed machine.

    “Come on, you piece of crap!” he yelled, pulling into the turn lane for a mall to his left, hoping to make it before his car died in the middle of oncoming traffic. Allen, not previously having been privy to this particular joy kept asking what was wrong. Shame, between shouting not too encouraging slogans at his car, tried his best to explain what the issue was.

    Slowly, the stuttering, sputtering blue car limped its way into the parking lot just before completely dying. Shame coasted it into an empty spot, slipped it into park, and gently applied the parking break. He took a deep breath... and then smashed his fist into the center of the steering wheel, bending the metal plate inside and closing the circuit for his horn, which then began blaring for all to hear.

    Fortunately for Shame, his vehicle was too old to have been equipped with an air bag, for that would have certainly set it off, punching him right back in the face with an explosive bag of air.

    While the horn blared at Shame in retaliation for the strike to the steering column, Allen began yelling about something or other, but Shame was too enraged to hear what he had said. Instead, he began tearing at the steering wheel cover, attempting to rip it off to expose the bent metal plate beneath.

    Shame, deafened by the ceaseless horn and blinded by a completely new level of vehicular induced rage, tugged and pulled at the metal plate, desperately trying to bend it away from whatever it was touching, endeavoring to silence the ear-splitting torment issued from the ruined console. Finally, after what certainly must have been hours of ripping away at the console, the dreaded horn fell quiet.

    Slowly, Shame’s vision began to clear and he could see the results of his frantic tearing. The once solid metal backing to the steering column was now twisted and jagged in places. Short, pointy metal fingers jutted up at his face as if defying him to punch them again. The sounds of ragged, heavy breathing broke through the ringing in his ears and he quickly realized it was himself. He turned to look at Allen, who stared back at him with a wild look of… concern.

    “What?” Shame demanded.

    “Nothing…” Allen said, uncertainly.

    Shame opened his door and popped the hood latch. He could see several people throughout the parking lot staring at him and the now silent car. Shame shrugged them off and hefted the hood, exposing the hood to the hot August air. Allen climbed out of the car then, coming around to stand next to Shame as he glared down at the engine.

    “Now what?” Allen asked.

    Shame scoffed and made unhappy noises before answering. “We wait.”

    And wait they did for over an hour and a half. Shame had even pleaded with a nearby restaurant and for a pitcher of ice water to dump on the engine of his temperamental car. During their wait, Shame apologized to Allen for his display of anger and explained how frequently he had had to deal with this problem. He also tried to replace the vinyl and plastic steering wheel cover, but to no avail. The bent, aggressively protruding metal would not allow the cover to fit back on. So Shame chucked the cover into the back seat, where it lived for the rest of the life of the stubborn blue menace, Seamus’ first car.