View from the Crack in the Wall

Spoiler

This a true story. It hit me so hard and I hope it resonates. I've been on both sides.

The plane's brakes screeched in protest as our momentum carried us forward. My hands snapped down on the armrest. Planes were an absolute terror for me. That fear, multiplied by my fatigue made my attitude turn sour effortlessly.

The plane finally lurched to a halt. Loosening my vice-like grip, I rubbed my eyes trying to get the weary bags out. The forty-plus sleepless hours showing like Broadway lights on my face. I was finally returning from my two-week trip to Mexico City. I had been sent there on a church assignment. Being a prominent member of the church many people had desired my service and I felt obligated to give it my all. Hence the exhaustion.

After taxi-ing on the runway for an extra half-hour, my lack of patience had bubbled over into a sour attitude. Something I was never proud to show after the fact, but at the moment I was feeling sorry for myself.

After another long hour of under-the-breath groans of complaint, I was finally at my car putting my two suitcases in the trunk. Luckily enough for me, someone had been kind enough to scratch my door and let out all the air in my rear left tire.

After more complaining, I got my hands dirty. Thirty-five more minutes of changing the tire compounded with an added five minutes for grumbling at the muck on my white shirt, found me finally starting my car. Being a very sarcastic person at the time, I thought to myself, "Murphy can just die!" This in reference to Murphy's law: whatever can go wrong, will. Just more self-pity from the man who had it all.

The drive back to my home was a long winding one; driving through broken-down roads filled with potholes, passing the local hospital, through the heart of downtown. At the last light before turning onto the parkway, I lost focus. Going stupidly over the speedlimit,I didn't have enough time to react on the wet, slick roads. I rammed into the Lexus in front of me. The damage was minimal; a hundred dollars maximum. However, the man in the expensive automobile didn't seem interested in the car.

Being a rather small man myself, I was naturally frightened by the wealthy 6'5'' hulk of a victim. Despite the fear, I knew I owed this man an apology. It wasn't like I enjoyed the accident either and I could see where his frustration was coming from.

This man, however, was filled with rage. I hadn't totalled his car, or made it undrivable. It appeared he was overreacting to the incident. My long day filled with the sense of "woe-is-me" mustered up a less than adequate apology, no matter how sincere I intended it to be. "Sir, I'm very sorry about your bumper. My foot slipped and I . . . "

"Hey pal! I don't need your excuses! You have any insurance? How about a phone number? I'm in a hurry and I don't have time to sit and talk with you about some stupid mistake." Naturally this is just paraphrasing. This man decided to throw in a few choice words followed by vulgarity that no one is proud of after the fact, but I will refrain from that.

Being immediately defensive, I pulled out my business card, gave it to him, showed him my drivers' license as testimony of the card and phone number, and drove home safely the rest of the way. All-in-all, a twelve hour travel day that ended at 3 a.m. local time.

I walked into my bedroom, exhausted. Kissing my wife's forehead, I drifted, heavily, off to sleep.

I expected to hear from this man the very next day. However, a month passed and still no word from the giant crammed in the Lexus. I had no way to contact the man, so it all depended on him to contact me and get my insurance information.

Two months to the day of the accident, I went to speak at a fireside; a local church gathering where prominent figures of all kinds, speak to young people in the church. As I stood on the pulpit, I began speaking, going through my prepared talk without a hitch. Finishing with the standard "Amen", I turned to walk back to my seat on stage. Swiveling quickly, I saw the man against the wall, shaved head and every single inch of his frame sending a wave of nausea through me . Our eyes met, and he waved me out into the hallway. Being the last speaker, the meeting ended after a quick closing prayer, giving me no time to psychologically prepare to talk to him.

Feeling uneasy about being alone with the man who had been very hostile in our first encounter, I walked out into the foyer to speak with him. His demeanor was very different this time, appearing as almost a completely different human being.

"Hello Brother Davis, I am Craig Jacobsen." We shook hands, me being more confident than nervous at this point. I thought for a moment that I was going to get an apology out of this man. I deserved it, after all.

"I wanted to talk to you about our altercation a couple months back . . . " Tears formed in this giant's eyes.

Wow, was he really feeling that sorrowful for what had occurred?

" . . . I'm sorry for the way I spoke to you, but I was on my way home to tell my children . . . " He choked up and paused to breathe, looking away from me. "That their mother had passed away."

My heart immediately dropped into my feet. I am the worst man to ever walk this planet.

"I had just left the hospital when you rear-ended me."

My mouth hung open. I was stunned. Tears filling my eyes, I grabbed this brother and hugged him until I had no feeling in my arms. "I'm sorry Brother. Sincerely, I am. I had no idea." He hugged me, gave a swift pat on the back, and walked off looking back only to say, "Great talk tonight, Brother." I watched in awe as Craig walked away, holding his head up, a smile beaming on his face.

I walked out the double doors, heading to my car. Gazing around frantically, I looked for the tiniest crack to scramble into and hide from my own conscious. Climbing in the drivers seat, I put my head on the steering wheel, weeping like a child.

Hi!

This was a good story, very hard-hitting and emotional, and you told it well. Even though this was a short piece of writing, I got a good sense of character, and the way it was paced worked very well, I thought.

Some of your wording was a little off, I found. Like here:

The plane's tires groaned in disgust while the brakes screeched in protest. My hands snapped down on the armrest like an alligator's jaws. Planes were an absolute terror for me. That fear, multiplied by my fatigue made my attitude turn south unlike this northern flight to my Salt Lake City home.

There’s too much going on. “Groaned in disgust” sounds too similar to “screeched in protest”; the repetition makes it clunky. Your sentences are kind of all the same length as well, and it’s good to have a variety of lengths. Texture, my tutor calls it. The last sentence is a bit too wordy; you could say the same thing with fewer words and make it clearer. I know that’s just one paragraph, but you do the same kind of stuff throughout, and it all seems like stuff you should change.

Although I did like the character, I didn’t like him taking time off to address the readers and say things like, “I’m sure you can imagine”. I hate it when narrators do that because it breaks the flow of the story. It jerks me out of it and it’s like getting hit over the head with a hammer, reminding you that yes, you are reading a story! this is not real! this is fiction and I’m reminding you of that fact just in case you’d forgotten!

I did like the story, I liked it a lot; there were just a few things in the telling of it that I felt could be tweaked to make it better reading.

PM me if you have any questions!

-Twit

I changed some things about the story that you had mentioned

Much agreed with Wooster's critique of your wordiness and your "I'm sure you can imagine" stuff.

The forty-plus sleepless hours showing like a broadway musical on my face.

...What? The sleepless hours were singing and dancing on your face? The sleepless hours were extremely expensive and hard to get on your face? The sleepless hours were not allowing you to have cameras on your face? The sleepless hours had actors with an average career of a few years on your face?
...No matter how I think about it, I have no idea what it means to have sleepless hours showing like a broadway musical on your face.

Lucky enough for me, someone had been kind enough to scratch my door and let out all the air in my rear left tire.

After more complaining, I got to work. Thirty-five more minutes of changing the tire compounded with an added five minutes for grumbling at the muck on my white shirt, found me finally starting my car.

I think you're trying to say "I got it to work." I read it as "I went to work (as in a workplace). Then I changed my flat tire.)

Being a very sarcastic person at the time, I thought to myself, "Murphy can just die!" This in reference to Murphy's law: whatever can go wrong, will. Just more self-pity from the man who had it all.

"Being a very sarcastic person at the time...in reference to Murphy's law..." It reads as really uninteresting and dead. There's no life in the writing. I don't know how to tell you to inject personality and life into your writing, but I can tell you that this isn't it.
And "the man who had it all"? How does this man have it all? We know nothing about him except the church work. I guess, given a certain viewpoint, that counts as having it all. But otherwise, we know nothing about this guy.

I lost focused

"I lost focus."

On a very uncomfortable speed I rammed into the Lexus in front of me. The damage was minimal; a hundred dollars maximum. However, the man in the adjacent automobile didn't seem interested in the car.

Wow.
That was the most boring way to say you got into a car accident ever. Here is an example where your writing is dead. No life, no feeling, no nothing except the observation of the occurrence.
And what does "On a very uncomfortable speed I rammed..." mean? Reword.

the man in the adjacent automobile didn't seem interested in the car.

"The man in the adjacent automobile..." More dead writing.

This man, however, was filled with anger. I hadn't totalled his car, or made it undrivable. It appeared he was overreacting to the incident.

Beyond dead writing. I can't feel his anger at all. All I know is that you told me he was angry--that he was overreacting. But the man does nothing to show me it.

no matter how sincer I intended it to be

"sincere"

Naturally this is just paraphrasing.

Like Wooster said above. [Warning warning. You are still reading a story. The narrator will now act cool and logical and speak to the reader]

I pulled out my business card, gave it to him, and drove home safely the rest of the way.

That's hardly what anybody--including the narrator, a car owner--would ever consider adequate enough after a car accident. It just sounds like, "Well, here's a business card. I'm going home now!"
Y'know, it could just be a business card that someone picked up from the last shop he/she was in. Then the guy will call up "Joe's Jamba Juice" and demand payment for his car and Joe will have no idea what's going on.
Okay, so the guy who got hit was in a hurry, but if he had enough time to get out of his car and say, "Hey, what the deal?", then he has enough time to write down the narrator's insurance number.

I kissed my wife's forehead and fell asleep.

Oh, there's a wife. How nice. And now she's gone forever.

Two months to the day of the accident, I went to speak at a fireside; a local church gathering where prominent figures of all kinds, speak to young people in the church.

Misuse of a semicolon. Semicolons separate two independent full sentences that are closely related. "A local church gathering where prominent figures...speak to people" is not a sentence.

My mouth hung open. I was stunned. Tears filling my eyes, I grabbed this brother and hugged him until I had no strength.

This is the most feeling your writing has. And it's not much. I don't want your characters breaking down and crying about everything, but I want to be inside your narrator's head. After all, it's a first person story. The reader should feel like he/she is the narrator.

Climbing in the drivers seat, I put my head on the steering wheel, and wept like a child.

That's actually a pretty good ending.

So, all in all....find your voice as a writer. Writing isn't simply about transcribing what happened. It isn't simply being witness to an event. It's about using the appropriate words and voice and mood. It's about relating to your reader without sounding like my boring uncle during the holidays telling me about the time he flew back into town, his tire was flat, and he rear-ended a guy while I'm yawning and trying to find ways to get out of the conversation. Writing is about telling the truth with a particular wisdom. What kind of wisdom that is is up to you. It becomes your voice, your view, your whole manner of writing.

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Defensive much? Relax. I'm not insulting you, but you seem to be insulting me. Don't post your works to a public literary forum for critiques if you're going to lash out at everyone that takes the time out of their day to leave a thoughtful review.

If you don't want people to leave honest opinions about your work, then keep your work to yourself.

P.S. I don't want a flame war with you that clogs up the forum and detracts from the whole experience for everybody else. So please, let's take this to PM if you want to respond. But I decided to post my reply on your story because other potential reviewers of your work need to see what they might be getting into.

Okay, i will revisit those things, thank you.

These stories tend to be the hardest to put out there I notice. They also tend to be the toughest to word right. :\ I think Sargsauce already put a lot of time and thought into critiqueing and lending his honest opinion, so I won't press into anything further. He probably already caught everything. But I did like this piece

In ways I do agree with him. I think it could be so much more detailed and reworded in areas. I'd like to read it again if you do edit in the future. I keep in mind it's a very personal piece to you though. (That's all I seem to be writting in my head these days x( ) I have no critical words. You're a good writer, Tommybear. You'll only keep getting better with it! Don't be upset with mean old Sarg. (You two probably already hashed things out anyway though.)

Sincerely,
"Smylin"!

I think Sarg covered everything. He reviewed one of my works before and it stung at first. But keep an open mind and try to improve. Would rather you rather be hidden from you weakness and dwell in it? its better to improve and move forward..

Nice story though! Looking forward to your next work!

I can tell where you made some tweaks. This was good! I noticed little minor grammar errors, but who doesn't make those? I think you added more thought into this in editing it. Good job, Tommybear ..However, I shouldv'e maybe saved this second review for another time. I'm kind of out of it, so some of the gears in my head aren't really turning. If I think of something more for this, I'll definitely get back to you again.

Your dad seemed like he was a really great man by the way. Sorry for the loss ... But if he raised you anything like him at least there's an upside to it all. Great story. Can't wait to read more from you.