Hooverville: 500-word Flash Fiction

Crossing the Line (social commentary)

His packed suitcase had sat in the trunk of the car for three weeks. It wasn't like he'd decided to leave one day, on a whim. "Daddy's going out for a pack of cigarettes" and just never comes back.

It wasn't like that at all. It had been a painful ratcheting forward, like trying to accelerate while jumping the clutch pedal. 

He'd made hotel reservations two states away and then cancelled them the next day. On a piece of scrap paper, he'd furtively calculated how much money he could withdraw from the bank without  Lynn and the boys going hungry, and then tore it up in disgust. 

It wasn't fair. He couldn't just leave his family. He could just disappear. 

But then he found himself answering job postings all over the country, crossing his fingers that none of them would solidify. That the cage door wouldn't swing open and tempt him out. 

But it had, in four different locations. He'd packed his suitcase and snuck out the door one morning before dawn while they were still sleeping.

Then he'd sat in his car and stared at the bushes and street lamps of the apartment complex, asking himself what the hell he thought he was doing. After a while, he'd driven to a donut shop, bought a dozen of their favorites and snuck back into the apartment, careful not to wake them, careful not to arouse suspicion.

The suitcase had stayed behind in the trunk.

But now he'd done it. Really done it. He'd stepped over the line from dutiful father to piece-of-shit dad.

What had flipped the switch? One moment, he'd been trying to get Jonah to stop screaming and throwing his dinner while Robbie danced in front of the blaring TV like a tiny hooligan, kicking his toys whenever he danced near one, and the next he'd gotten up, walked to the door, grabbed his keys and wallet, put on his jacket and left, closing the door on his children. On eight years of his life.

He was almost to the Interstate.

Did he think about what Lynn would find when she came home from work in an hour? He'd like to say that he thought long and hard about it, but that would've been a lie.

Another, deeper part of himself had taken control and was steering his actions. He knew that wouldn't last, that the guilt would rip through at some point. The regret. 

But it would never be powerful enough to turn him around, to force him back home.

The traffic on the Interstate was light. He merged in, keeping pace with the other cars, the other travellers on their own journeys. It would take five hours to get where he was going.

He leaned forward, turned on the radio, and drove on into the growing darkness that edged the far, far horizon.