Locmin For Senate (3 of 3)

Posted by Alex Clermont on September 5, 2011 · 6 Comments 

So this is the last part of Locmin For Senate. I hope you’ve enjoyed the previous parts. As with all older writings I look back on this piece and think of what I could’ve or should’ve done. The story, however, is still good in my opinion. If you feel the same please use the media tools on the bottom to share it (or anything on this site) and let me know how you feel. To check out part 1 click here. For part 2 click here.

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Isaac turned away from Helen and, again, towards the RV window – unconsciously avoiding his wife’s talking points. From the interview Isaacs’s mind went back to replaying the funeral.

The priest told a story. “… He asked Simon to touch the holes in his hand. Simon had said he needed proof that Jesus had return. There it was. Because he lacked faith Jesus told him to look at his wounds, look at the scars he had been given so that humanity would be saved. Jesus than told us – that’s right, us as well as Simon – that blessed are those who believe without needing proof.

“Today we’ve lost someone very special to us. Abraham Locmin was our brother, friend and father.” Helen squeezed Isaac’s arm a little harder as he cried. “He was also a Christian and understood that the promise of our lord was the promise of a resurrection for those with faith. We also know this promise and realize that though we are saying goodbye, Abraham will never leave us.”

That unknown thing that gripped Isaac at the funeral began to take hold of him in the RV, and he found himself fighting back tears as Helen sat only four feet away. He thought about the sunken skin on his father’s face. Eaten up by prostate cancer Abraham’s body had betrayed him. Weakened from years of stressful living and scarred by fruitless operations to save him, his body put on display, for anyone willing to look, the truth about the world he had helped create. Not one for reflection, Isaac never noticed that truth shining brightly from the dying man’s face – but he was beginning to see. And he was beginning to question what his life had become.

He pin pointed the thing that made him cry at the funeral. It was the fight that he never put up. What if he yelled in his father’s office. What if he had gone to France that summer? What if he did become Senator? Or even President? Would his life improve at all? Would he, or could he, enhance the lives of others? Did he even care, or was getting power the whole point and not the means to something greater? If his father never seemed satisfied with life, what made him think he would be? What or who was it that determined that he would live so well while the world was filled with people who clawed at the dirt with their bare hands for food?

When all of his hairs turn gray, and he dies, what will happen to him? What will heaven be like? Would he be taken there? Or maybe he would just rot in the dirt – with all that he ever was ending up as food for earth worms and fertilizer for the lush green grass at Saint Benedict’s Cemetery.

As Isaac began thinking about these things – really for the first time – he was forced to notice the speeding Locmin Mobile. Helen was shaking his shoulders to bring him out of the teary eyed trance he had fallen into. Waking up, Isaac found himself in the middle of panicked yells. He shouted, “What’s going on?”

The RV was racing over bumps in the road and swerving through small curves.

One aide said “The breaks are…!”

“We’re going down a fucking hill!” another yelled, interrupting the first.

As fast as the Locmin mobile went, it was never this fast.

Isaac shouted, “The emergency breaks!”

“Nothing!” an aide hollered back.

Time began to slow down for Isaac as he looked around. He looked at Helen and wondered, “What if?” He looked at his aides and couldn’t figure out why he needed them. He looked at the stack of handouts that had found their way to the floor. He saw a foot print on his photo and looked at the details of his bio sheet – a life he didn’t choose. Amid the loud noises and fear that was flooding the Locmine mobile, Isaac felt pity. Pity for the man in the picture that was starting to look more and more alien to him.

Suddenly, with a loud crack, the rattling stopped. The RV hit a divider at the bottom of a downhill curve. On the mountainside rode the divider separated the interstate road from a much lower lane, and after breaking through the RV was falling. Isaac looked out of the window for the last time and saw that the Locmin mobile was heading for the asphalt of the other road, soon to be crushed head first under it’s own weight.

Isaac heard each and every sound – the screaming, the cursing, the begging, the crying – and for a moment he thought he was yelling too. He wasn’t. Instead he was looking at the horizon with open and attentive eyes. From his height he saw land that stretched out into the pacific. He thought about the Isaac Locmin who was living out the ideals of his father’s world – as a politician, as a husband, as a human being. His own motivations had been eroded and replaced with mysteries he was just now beginning to understand. Just now.

In the same second, Isaac saw the slight semi-circle of light that separated the sky and the earth. Scared beyond understanding, words came to Isaac that he didn’t understand. He looked at his photo, closed his eyes, and with an honesty in his voice that he had been working towards his whole life Isaac Locmin said to himself, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Isaac woke up with his hands near his toes and a pen jammed into his thigh. His back was to the window he had been looking out of and that window was on the side of the RV that was laying on the ground. He laid there breathing heavy, trying to pull his thoughts together. John was next to him. John’s face was pressed against the window and his neck was bent at an ninety degree angle towards his left shoulder. Isaac’s eyes opened wide and his body shuddered at the sight of death. He held in his horror and pulled out the blue bic from his right leg.

Helen was unconscious too, with a gash on her right temple and what looked like a broken arm – but Isaac could hear her breathing in the quiet wreck that the Locmin mobile had become. The vehicle had ripped open in some places like a shredded soda can and light came in through those cracks near Isaac. He made his way towards it and squirmed out onto the road.

Still lying on the floor Isaac took out his cell phone and dialed out for help. The screen’s broken glass cut into his face.

“Hello, Emer…”

“There’s been a accident  on Route 162 near…” He looked around frantically. “… Near exit 20. I think at least one person is dead. Maybe more. I… I…” Isaac trailed off as his eyes focused on his stepped-on photo on the floor of the RV across from him.

“Okay sir I’m sending help now. They should be there shortly. What is your name sir?”

Isaac’s fear subsided a bit as his smiling face started back at him from the other side of the wreak.

“Who am I speaking to? The operator repeated.

“Isaac Locmin. I’m a…” Isaac looked down at his button “I’m Isaac. That’s it.”

“Okay Mr. Locmin. Do you feel alright? Are you injured?”

Isaac removed his button and slowly placed it on the ground.

“I think. I think I’ll be fine.”

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