New-Used

FICTION New-Used__________________________ Chris Holbrook MARK'S MOTHER AND SISTER SAT BOWED OVER THE SEWING MACHINE in the corner farthest from the TV, his mother speaking softly while his sister aligned the edges of two pieces of scrap cloth beneath the machine needle. The baby sat beneath their chairs, pulling dress material and folded patterns from the bags of sewing his mother had taken in. When the scrap cloth was in place, Mark's mother lowered the needle and pressed the foot pedal that his sister's legs were still too short to reach. The little motor whirred, drowning the sound of the TV and turning the picture to jagged lines. Mark watched his sister move the pieces of scrap cloth beneath the flickering needle as the thread bobber spun atop the housing. For a moment he was struckby the way she rested her elbows on the machine cabinet, how she held her chin raised and squinted her eyes, her face shadowed by the slanting light of the single overhead bulb. Watching her, he let his eyes go out of focus, the way he looked at clouds sometimes or distant trees until their forms blurred and turned to different shapes. But thenhis mother let off the foot pedal and raised the needle. The thread bobber stilled, and in the sudden quiet, whatever different shape he'd been about to make of his sister, he lost. He watched her pick up the scissors. They were large and awkward in her hand, and it took her two tries to catch the thread between the blades. Mark's father came from the back room then, his steps so light upon the bare-wood flooring that Mark was almost startled to see him among them. He was dressed in the dark pants and white shirt he wore on weekends. Even so he looked like a man readying himself more for work than town—the cuffs of his shirt rolled above his wrists, his pants pockets bulging with keys and knife and billfold, a fresh smear of oil already marking the knuckles of his right hand. He shut off the TV, and for a moment the only sound was the slight rasp of paper as he sorted through a stack of envelopes. When he spoke his voice seemed sudden and too loud in the small room. "Betty," he said, "I can't find the car title." For a moment more his mother sat studying the practice seam his sister had run in the scrap cloth, then she rose from the sewing machine. 37 They stood quietly facing each other, and Mark wondered if the argument they'd been having was about to rise between them again. It had been a month since his father had gotten on operating an endloader at Birchfield Coal, and it had been a month since he'd begun to speak of trading cars. Each day he'd knocked and banged on the old Ford, cussing and declaiming. "This old rattle-trap, it's burning oil. This old rattle-trap, it's costing me more to keep up than it's worth." His mother the whole month had argued without speaking, saying neither yes nor no in words, just holding her head in such a way, like a person saying a prayer or like a person adding something in her head. Finally she'd said may as well. "May as well now, while we can." His father had fallen silent then, and from then on crept quietly about the house, his face stiff and guilty looking. As he spoke this morning, Mark heard the growing agitation in his voice, saw in the growing redness of his face how he thought himself questioned again, questioned on this move he'd come hard to and was not sure of. "I've got to have something to drive." "I'm not saying nothing." "How am I going to work if I don't have something to drive?" "I'm not saying nothing." "I've got to have something to drive." He spoke slowly, his spread hands measuring out the words. "It's as simple as that." His mother stood with her shoulders stooped, her...