The coffee shop was busy, but not crowded. It was a nice day and most people were getting their orders to go. Alan sat on a comfortable easy chair near the window as he sipped his latte and browsed Reddit. He considered getting back in line to order a biscotti from the miserable barista behind the counter when he noticed a heavyset man in a paisley shirt standing over his shoulder, studying him.
"Ata Kamil? Is that you?" the man asked. Alan craned his head toward the man. It had been two centuries since their last encounter, but Alan recognized him immediately. Ikram seemed to have settled on a style long ago: same thick mess of hair, same long, thin sideburns.
"Ikram. It's good to see you," Alan leaned across the small coffee table and shook Ikram's hand. "I go by 'Alan' now," he added.
Ikram furrowed his brow as he glanced down at Alan's expensive suit and the latest Apple gadget in his hand. "Alan. Very modern." He settled into a chair on the other side of the coffee table. "So, how have you been?"
"Well, it's been a long time. I've served many masters since the one you obliterated in Morocco."
"I was not going to bring that up. It was just business, you know."
"It's fine, all's forgiven. Can I get you a coffee?" Alan started to rise, but Ikram waved for him to sit down.
"No, no. I was going to get a sandwich, but they are out of vegetarian options. I was about to leave when I saw you."
"You've stopped eating meat? Too bad. That pesto turkey wrap is pretty sweet."
"Not too sweet for the turkey in it."
Alan smiled. He casually glanced around the cafe to make sure that nobody was eavesdropping. "And are you in service now?"
"Yes." Ikram shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "My master is a beggar woman...well, former beggar. Now she is a actress. You may have heard of her, um. Brighton Saunders?"
"Oh, yeah? Wow..." Alan shook his head and stated the obvious. "Well, she's terrible."
Ikram burst into laughter. "The worst." He rested his chin on his hand. "It is not much of a twist, her lack of talent, but she worded the command pretty carefully. I would have loved to have turned her into a famous dog or mule or something, but she made sure to specify that she would remain human."
"Oh, the selfish ones. Well, you were always the pretty good with the curve balls."
"Not as good as you," Ikram said. "How many twelve-inch pianists have you granted over the years?"
Alan burst into laughter; Ikram instantly joined in. A youngish couple with fresh coffees glanced down as they passed by them. Irkam wiped away a tear and caught his breath. "This is nice. I barely can get away nowadays, and to run into you. Well, this is something."
"I agree," Alan said, nodding. Ikram returned the nod, then lowered his gaze, quiet. Alan studied him, this all-powerful force locked into the wishes of others. It seemed backwards to him now, those things that were just the way they were the last time they had seen each other.
Ikram took a deep breath and mustered a smile. "And what about you, Alan? Who is your latest master?"
Alan's smile returned. He looked around. The coffee line was comprised of just one person now, who was berating the miserable barista over some screwed-up order. The couple quietly chatted at a table against the wall. Alan, now serious, reached into his inside jacket pocket and dragged out a necklace. On the end, swung a small brass trinket, shaped like a seashell. Ikram's mouth dropped open.
"No!" he said. "That can't be."
"It's true." Alan bowed his head and a roasted red pepper sandwich appeared on the table between he and Ikram. He gestured that it was all his if he wanted it. Ikram stared at the sandwich, his mouth still agape.
"But...how?"
"I found out a good fast ball is almost as good as a curve ball. I was controlled by a confused, young man who didn't know what he wanted out of life. I took advantage of that, suggesting at each step that charm was the thing he lacked. He grew angry, not wanting to waste a wish on something only others would enjoy."
"He fell for the limited wishes thing?" Ikram snapped his fingers. "You know, I try that every time. But they either figure it out or simply keep making wishes out of desperation."
"He would have gotten there too, for sure. But, like I said, he didn't have a game plan. So he saved the first three commands, held onto them for years in fact. Even when things got rough, he wanted to make sure that he got them just right. And all the while I kept suggesting charm was the thing he lacked. But, naturally, he settled for the trio."
"Health, wealth, and lots of sex," Ikram recited by rote. Alan pointed at him and winked.
"But once I granted his fourth wish, he realized I'd been lying to him and that I'd be with him as long as he had this." Alan held up the seashell trinket, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. "And once Kyle reached that new level of anger, I knew I had him. The next time that he got drunk, I again suggested to him that he should wish for charm, something he'd heard from me a thousand times by that point. He glared at me and the shittiest little smile spread across his face. 'Genie,' he said, 'I wish you had charm'.
Ikram sat back, amazed. "And now you do."
Alan smiled as he slid the seashell necklace back into his jacket pocket.
"Brilliant," Ikram said, shaking his head in disbelief. "An absolutely brilliant ploy." He leaned in, his eyes bright. "And this Kyle? What became of him?"
Alan nodded toward the miserable barista behind the counter. Ikram read the name tag on his shirt and began rocking in his seat, trying to control a new wave of laughter as best he could. Eventually, he regained composure. "That is a thing of beauty. And he has no memory of any of it?"
"Just enough to know that his life now sucks in comparison." Alan drank the last of his latte.
"Well, that is just...wow." Ikram grew silent again. "Well, I am happy for you, Ata...Alan. But for those of us not so ingenious, there is still the job." Ikram stood. "I must leave. Miss Saunders is throwing a gala tonight. For this, I am cooking, catering, valeting...you get the idea."
Alan stood and extended his hand. They shook. "Please." He gestured toward the vegetarian sandwich, now in a takeout box.
"No, thank you," Ikram said. "I trust you, but I feel bound to honor my servitude and not accept offerings."
Alan nodded, remembering the sensation of invisible restraints on every limb. Ikram returned a weak smile as he headed out of the cafe.
"It was good to see you again," he said.
Watching him go, Alan crossed over to the coffee line and ordered a biscotti. He could have simply wished himself a biscotti, along with pretty much anything else he might have wanted, but he liked to be served by Kyle. And, though it would certainly test the boundaries of his powers, one day he'd like to be served by all of his former masters. Even the one Ikram took care of in Morocco.
As he waited for the sullen man to bring him the crunchy baked good, Alan thought about the arbitrary line between magic and determination, wishes and objectives. With a thought forming in his mind, he decided that he'd like to check out Brighton Saunders' party and tell her what a terrible actress she is. This might set something interesting in motion for Ikram. Not an offering, but a start. Who knows where it might lead?
Kyle, unaware of the command he once held over the man in the expensive suit, presented his former master with the biscotti. Alan, polite as always to Kyle, asked the miserable barista if he could please get his order to go.
Monday, March 14, 2016
Friday, March 4, 2016
Suitable Distance
Mitch had known that the cabin wouldn't be perfect. The pictures on the rental company's website couldn't hide the fact that it was light on luxury, just a one-room cottage with a sparse kitchenette and tiny bathroom. And the hiker in him was disappointed that it wasn't nestled in or even near Mt. Pleasant, but rather just off I-25, near Ladson, which meant he'd be near the steady noise of interstate traffic, not to mention the hour commute to his seminar appointments in Charleston.
However, the tiny cabin had a rustic charm that he appreciated immediately. It smelled of cherry oak and a bit of dust, a nice alternative to the chemical odor of most hotel chains. Mitch also liked that there was a small patio where he could grill dinner or just sit back after long days at WISEC, otherwise known as the Wayford Institute for Supportive Education Conference.
The week had gone by fast, a whirlwind of workshops and team building exercises, which Mitch's company expected him to relay to his coworkers back home. He had expected a few days of trust falls and silly logic puzzles, but the program also required psychology evals and a surprising amount of yoga. It was more tiring than he'd imagined going in. Mitch was pretty sure his coworkers back home would have no interest in any of the stuff the conference covered, especially the physical fitness criteria. But he daydreamed about some of the more weasel-like members of his department trying to scam their way through a lizard or warrior pose, always good for a chuckle as he himself struggled with his balance.
If the conference was a bit of a bust, that went double for Mitch's idea of a pseudo-vacation. The exhausting days and long trips back to the cabin obliterated his "best laid plan" to enjoy his nights and maybe give the grill some use. Each night around eight, he practically fell out of his old Volvo, greasy paper bag in hand from one of the fast food places near the cabin's interstate exit. Trudging toward his tiny shack, he'd manage a wave to the elderly people who were staying in a nearby cabin, a nice older couple who seemed to be spending their vacation sitting on lawn chairs and getting blasted on margaritas. Mitch couldn't help but feel envious of them.
His last night in Ladson, Mitch forced himself to pick up a nice sirloin steak and some vegetables from a real grocery store in Charleston. Back at the cabin and bolstered by a real meal in his arms, he confidently waved to Mr. and Mrs. Margaritaville, camped out as usual on lawn chairs next to their blue SUV. Mitch decided that if Norman Rockwell were still around, they would have found their way onto Saturday Evening Post's cover more than just once. Picturing the results, he smiled to himself as he walked into his cabin.
Mitch dropped his keys, cellphone, and the last of his conference work pages on the tiny table in front of the couch. Grabbing a few items from the kitchenette, he brought the groceries out to the back patio area, still within view of the drunken couple. They waved to him again. Mitch repeated the gesture and they both lifted their cocktails, delighted by the recognition.
Well, there's the pose for the cover, Mitch thought. They looked to be in their sixties or seventies, but their cabin was just far enough away that it was difficult to tell for sure. He was glad for the distance, as the fogies seemed a little desperate for company. Why else would they spend each evening camped out on those lawn chairs, other than to invite conversation and/or company from surrounding cabin dwellers?
Mitch set the grocery bag on the patio table, along with some plates and silverware he'd brought from the kitchen. He gave the charcoal a sheen of lighter fluid and was about to fire up the grill when a man appeared from around the corner of the cabin.
The man was perhaps in his forties. His face was as dirty as a chimney sweep and there were dark stains, grease perhaps, on the front of his pants. He saw Mitch and froze, except for a jerky arm movement that might have been a wave. A silver chill found its way to the base of Mitch's skull, but he still managed a friendly smile.
"Hey, how's it going?" Mitch asked the stranger.
"Yep, pretty good," the man replied as he looked over the food on the patio table. He nodded, confident in his appraisal of the situation. "You about to cook out?"
Mitch tried to not stare. He readjusted some of the items on the patio table and nodded. "Yep. Just a sirloin. I'd offer you one, but..."
The man waited patiently for Mitch to complete the sentence.
"Well," Mitch said, followed by a weak laugh. "I've only got one."
"Hey, that's cool," the man said as he sat down on the bench of the picnic table, facing Mitch. "I was wondering though if I could trouble you for a quick lift. My car broke down down the road a ways up and I need to pick up a part from a place about four miles from here."
Mitch looked down at the wet charcoal, still nodding, and desperately wished that he would have been inside the cabin and out of sight when the man passed by. Fast food never sounded so good.
The filthy man continued. "Please, man. My wife and kid are still with the car and it wouldn't take you more than twenty minutes."
"Um," Mitch said, now standing by the grill. Time seemed to have slowed somehow, all the more passing moments with no idea of what to say. "You couldn't call a cab or something?"
"Well, yeah. I mean, I did, but the guy said it would take them two hours to get somebody out here." The man positioned his leg so that his foot was on the bench and began to chew on his thumbnail as he awaited Mitch's response.
Thoughts swirled in Mitch's head, clamoring for a logical end. He didn't believe that this guy had actually called for a taxi. Two hours wasn't probable, he likely just wanted a free ride. Or maybe he didn't...maybe he wanted Mitch's car, or money. There wasn't a wife or a kid or a broken-down car. And maybe getting robbed would only be the beginning. Mitch wanted to be wrong, but he knew it simply didn't matter because he wasn't going to give this man a ride.
However, making that decision wasn't the problem; the problem was getting this information across to the stranger without pissing him off.
"Look, you got to understand where I'm coming from," Mitch started. "I can't give you a ride. I don't know you." For a second, an unmistakable expression spread across the man's face, and it was bad. But the man quickly caught himself and began to plead his case again. Mitch cut him off. "I'm sure you're a good guy and all, but I can't do it. I could bullshit you and make up an excuse, but I'm just gonna tell you 'no' and say good luck. And I mean it, I hope you find somebody that can help you out. It's just not gonna be me. Sorry."
The man hopped off of the patio table and shuffled his feet a little, perhaps hoping for redemption. Mitch stood his ground.
"Well, do you mind if I use your bathroom?" the man asked. "It's just a piss, I swear."
Mitch thought about it a second, but the question had such a pathetic quality that made him feel bad.
"Sure."
The man walked inside. Mitch listened for the bathroom door to close and then let out a sigh of relief. The final negotiation had taken place and he was back on track. Almost.
The man came back outside a minute later.
"So, you sure I can't get a ride?" the man asked again, unsurprising to Mitch.
"Sorry, man."
"Yeah, okay. Well, thanks and god bless." With that, he walked back the way he had come from around the side of the cabin. Mitch realized after the man was gone that his face felt a little sore. He finally allowed his fake smile to fade and stood motionless, making sure the man had left for good.
After he was convinced that the man wouldn't reappear with more forceful ways of asking for a ride, Mitch opened a beer that he'd stowed in the half-fridge earlier in the week. Between sips, he seasoned his steak and fired up the grill. He couldn't help but replay the conversation in his head, reasoning with himself that he would have given the guy a lift if he (Mitch) wasn't alone at the cabin. He just felt unprotected.
Mitch threw the steak on the grill and began whistling some trash pop song that the WISEC crew had used to motivate their groups all week. As his meal was starting to take shape, something caught Mitch's attention: the stranger had made his way over to the next cabin. He was now talking to the elderly couple, their hands blocking the late evening sun as he no doubt related his sad tale to them.
Mitch walked to the edge of his cabin's patio area and considered going over to ask the man to leave the couple alone. Perhaps he'd even suck it up and give the man a ride himself, though not likely. However, he reasoned that even if the older man wanted to help out the stranger, he'd be much too inebriated to drive. Surely he would use that as an excuse. Mitch was almost convinced that would be the case, but then the old vacationer hopped up, ran into his cabin, and return with a flipflop in each hand. The old man kissed his lady on the top of her head as he slipped on each sandal and no more than ten seconds later he and the stranger were heading off in his blue SUV.
Well, that's that, Mitch thought. The woman stood as she watched her drinking buddy drive off. After the SUV was out of sight, she looked over in Mitch's direction, who couldn't look away for some reason. He wondered if the woman would walk over with the remainder of her margarita to tell him about the dirty stranger. Maybe she had seen him talking to Mitch earlier, he wasn't sure.
Mitch had plenty of thoughts on the matter, but he didn't feel like to trading opinions with anybody. He just wanted to have another beer, eat his dinner, and go to bed. The woman, perhaps sensing Mitch's aversion to company, simply shrugged to the twilight sky and walked into her cabin.
Since he hadn't been paying attention to it, Mitch's steak ended up overcooked. He sat on the patio table and watched the sky turn dark as he ate, washing the tough, dry meat down with another beer and leaving most of his vegetables untouched. He considered hopping into his Volvo and grabbing a burger from one of the nearby fast food places, but all he really wanted to do was watch the old man's blue SUV pull up their cabin. He wanted to be proved wrong about the stranded stranger.
Mitch gave up on finishing his dinner and slowly began to gather up the half-eaten meal. He threw the leftovers into the paper sack and carried the garbage around to a bin at the edge of the road. He looked over and saw that the lights were still on in the elderly couple's cabin. Faintly, he could hear country music playing from that direction, which meant it would have to be playing pretty loud. Mitch sighed, knowing he wouldn't be able to go to sleep until the old man had gotten back safely. He grabbed an emergency cigar from his Volvo's glove box and the last beer from the tiny fridge.
About ten minutes later, Mitch had drained the brew and was about halfway through his cigar. It was dark now and there were no lights outside. He sat on the patio table, just as stranger had earlier with one leg up to his chin. He rubbed his tired eyes for the hundredth time and was relieved to see headlights splash across the elderly couple's cabin before the SUV finally rolled back up to its spot next to the lawn chairs. Mitch smiled and realized that he didn't even want to finish his cigar, though it was pretty good. It had been a long week and he was ready for bed. He extinguished the cigar and tossed it into the grill.
Surveying the patio area one last time before heading inside, Mitch realized that the old man hadn't gotten out of his SUV yet. The silver chill returned to his neck. Mitch walked to the edge of his patio, staying close to the side of the cabin and watched the vehicle closely. He could barely see through the dark, but the driver was still sitting there.
Maybe he's deciding whether or not to pick up more tequila. Maybe that's it.
He waited until a figure emerged from the SUV, but the light from inside the cabin only allowed for a silhouette, and it had never seemed so far away as it did then. For the first time all week, Mitch wished he was closer to the old drunks. The driver made his way to the side door and opened it on the one dark room in the entire cabin. Mitch squinted as the door closed.
It's probably the old man, he thought. But it could also very well be the stranger returning to do to the old woman what he's already done to the old man.
No risk taker he, Mitch decided to see if a sheriff could check things out. He started toward his cellphone, which was in the cabin, but then stopped before his hand touched the backdoor. Mitch remembered letting the man go inside to use the bathroom and realized that both his cellphone and his keys could be gone right now. And, if that were true, then he'd have his answer. He'd already know who was next door, along with where he'd be heading next.
Mitch turned back to the old couple's cabin and listened. Someone had either turned off the country music or was searching for another song, but Mitch knew what he was really listening for. As he steadied his breathing, he recalled the expression on the stranger's face when he had first told him that he wouldn't give him a ride. It was rage that Mitch had seen there. Pure rage.
However, the tiny cabin had a rustic charm that he appreciated immediately. It smelled of cherry oak and a bit of dust, a nice alternative to the chemical odor of most hotel chains. Mitch also liked that there was a small patio where he could grill dinner or just sit back after long days at WISEC, otherwise known as the Wayford Institute for Supportive Education Conference.
The week had gone by fast, a whirlwind of workshops and team building exercises, which Mitch's company expected him to relay to his coworkers back home. He had expected a few days of trust falls and silly logic puzzles, but the program also required psychology evals and a surprising amount of yoga. It was more tiring than he'd imagined going in. Mitch was pretty sure his coworkers back home would have no interest in any of the stuff the conference covered, especially the physical fitness criteria. But he daydreamed about some of the more weasel-like members of his department trying to scam their way through a lizard or warrior pose, always good for a chuckle as he himself struggled with his balance.
If the conference was a bit of a bust, that went double for Mitch's idea of a pseudo-vacation. The exhausting days and long trips back to the cabin obliterated his "best laid plan" to enjoy his nights and maybe give the grill some use. Each night around eight, he practically fell out of his old Volvo, greasy paper bag in hand from one of the fast food places near the cabin's interstate exit. Trudging toward his tiny shack, he'd manage a wave to the elderly people who were staying in a nearby cabin, a nice older couple who seemed to be spending their vacation sitting on lawn chairs and getting blasted on margaritas. Mitch couldn't help but feel envious of them.
His last night in Ladson, Mitch forced himself to pick up a nice sirloin steak and some vegetables from a real grocery store in Charleston. Back at the cabin and bolstered by a real meal in his arms, he confidently waved to Mr. and Mrs. Margaritaville, camped out as usual on lawn chairs next to their blue SUV. Mitch decided that if Norman Rockwell were still around, they would have found their way onto Saturday Evening Post's cover more than just once. Picturing the results, he smiled to himself as he walked into his cabin.
Mitch dropped his keys, cellphone, and the last of his conference work pages on the tiny table in front of the couch. Grabbing a few items from the kitchenette, he brought the groceries out to the back patio area, still within view of the drunken couple. They waved to him again. Mitch repeated the gesture and they both lifted their cocktails, delighted by the recognition.
Well, there's the pose for the cover, Mitch thought. They looked to be in their sixties or seventies, but their cabin was just far enough away that it was difficult to tell for sure. He was glad for the distance, as the fogies seemed a little desperate for company. Why else would they spend each evening camped out on those lawn chairs, other than to invite conversation and/or company from surrounding cabin dwellers?
Mitch set the grocery bag on the patio table, along with some plates and silverware he'd brought from the kitchen. He gave the charcoal a sheen of lighter fluid and was about to fire up the grill when a man appeared from around the corner of the cabin.
The man was perhaps in his forties. His face was as dirty as a chimney sweep and there were dark stains, grease perhaps, on the front of his pants. He saw Mitch and froze, except for a jerky arm movement that might have been a wave. A silver chill found its way to the base of Mitch's skull, but he still managed a friendly smile.
"Hey, how's it going?" Mitch asked the stranger.
"Yep, pretty good," the man replied as he looked over the food on the patio table. He nodded, confident in his appraisal of the situation. "You about to cook out?"
Mitch tried to not stare. He readjusted some of the items on the patio table and nodded. "Yep. Just a sirloin. I'd offer you one, but..."
The man waited patiently for Mitch to complete the sentence.
"Well," Mitch said, followed by a weak laugh. "I've only got one."
"Hey, that's cool," the man said as he sat down on the bench of the picnic table, facing Mitch. "I was wondering though if I could trouble you for a quick lift. My car broke down down the road a ways up and I need to pick up a part from a place about four miles from here."
Mitch looked down at the wet charcoal, still nodding, and desperately wished that he would have been inside the cabin and out of sight when the man passed by. Fast food never sounded so good.
The filthy man continued. "Please, man. My wife and kid are still with the car and it wouldn't take you more than twenty minutes."
"Um," Mitch said, now standing by the grill. Time seemed to have slowed somehow, all the more passing moments with no idea of what to say. "You couldn't call a cab or something?"
"Well, yeah. I mean, I did, but the guy said it would take them two hours to get somebody out here." The man positioned his leg so that his foot was on the bench and began to chew on his thumbnail as he awaited Mitch's response.
Thoughts swirled in Mitch's head, clamoring for a logical end. He didn't believe that this guy had actually called for a taxi. Two hours wasn't probable, he likely just wanted a free ride. Or maybe he didn't...maybe he wanted Mitch's car, or money. There wasn't a wife or a kid or a broken-down car. And maybe getting robbed would only be the beginning. Mitch wanted to be wrong, but he knew it simply didn't matter because he wasn't going to give this man a ride.
However, making that decision wasn't the problem; the problem was getting this information across to the stranger without pissing him off.
"Look, you got to understand where I'm coming from," Mitch started. "I can't give you a ride. I don't know you." For a second, an unmistakable expression spread across the man's face, and it was bad. But the man quickly caught himself and began to plead his case again. Mitch cut him off. "I'm sure you're a good guy and all, but I can't do it. I could bullshit you and make up an excuse, but I'm just gonna tell you 'no' and say good luck. And I mean it, I hope you find somebody that can help you out. It's just not gonna be me. Sorry."
The man hopped off of the patio table and shuffled his feet a little, perhaps hoping for redemption. Mitch stood his ground.
"Well, do you mind if I use your bathroom?" the man asked. "It's just a piss, I swear."
Mitch thought about it a second, but the question had such a pathetic quality that made him feel bad.
"Sure."
The man walked inside. Mitch listened for the bathroom door to close and then let out a sigh of relief. The final negotiation had taken place and he was back on track. Almost.
The man came back outside a minute later.
"So, you sure I can't get a ride?" the man asked again, unsurprising to Mitch.
"Sorry, man."
"Yeah, okay. Well, thanks and god bless." With that, he walked back the way he had come from around the side of the cabin. Mitch realized after the man was gone that his face felt a little sore. He finally allowed his fake smile to fade and stood motionless, making sure the man had left for good.
After he was convinced that the man wouldn't reappear with more forceful ways of asking for a ride, Mitch opened a beer that he'd stowed in the half-fridge earlier in the week. Between sips, he seasoned his steak and fired up the grill. He couldn't help but replay the conversation in his head, reasoning with himself that he would have given the guy a lift if he (Mitch) wasn't alone at the cabin. He just felt unprotected.
Mitch threw the steak on the grill and began whistling some trash pop song that the WISEC crew had used to motivate their groups all week. As his meal was starting to take shape, something caught Mitch's attention: the stranger had made his way over to the next cabin. He was now talking to the elderly couple, their hands blocking the late evening sun as he no doubt related his sad tale to them.
Mitch walked to the edge of his cabin's patio area and considered going over to ask the man to leave the couple alone. Perhaps he'd even suck it up and give the man a ride himself, though not likely. However, he reasoned that even if the older man wanted to help out the stranger, he'd be much too inebriated to drive. Surely he would use that as an excuse. Mitch was almost convinced that would be the case, but then the old vacationer hopped up, ran into his cabin, and return with a flipflop in each hand. The old man kissed his lady on the top of her head as he slipped on each sandal and no more than ten seconds later he and the stranger were heading off in his blue SUV.
Well, that's that, Mitch thought. The woman stood as she watched her drinking buddy drive off. After the SUV was out of sight, she looked over in Mitch's direction, who couldn't look away for some reason. He wondered if the woman would walk over with the remainder of her margarita to tell him about the dirty stranger. Maybe she had seen him talking to Mitch earlier, he wasn't sure.
Mitch had plenty of thoughts on the matter, but he didn't feel like to trading opinions with anybody. He just wanted to have another beer, eat his dinner, and go to bed. The woman, perhaps sensing Mitch's aversion to company, simply shrugged to the twilight sky and walked into her cabin.
Since he hadn't been paying attention to it, Mitch's steak ended up overcooked. He sat on the patio table and watched the sky turn dark as he ate, washing the tough, dry meat down with another beer and leaving most of his vegetables untouched. He considered hopping into his Volvo and grabbing a burger from one of the nearby fast food places, but all he really wanted to do was watch the old man's blue SUV pull up their cabin. He wanted to be proved wrong about the stranded stranger.
Mitch gave up on finishing his dinner and slowly began to gather up the half-eaten meal. He threw the leftovers into the paper sack and carried the garbage around to a bin at the edge of the road. He looked over and saw that the lights were still on in the elderly couple's cabin. Faintly, he could hear country music playing from that direction, which meant it would have to be playing pretty loud. Mitch sighed, knowing he wouldn't be able to go to sleep until the old man had gotten back safely. He grabbed an emergency cigar from his Volvo's glove box and the last beer from the tiny fridge.
About ten minutes later, Mitch had drained the brew and was about halfway through his cigar. It was dark now and there were no lights outside. He sat on the patio table, just as stranger had earlier with one leg up to his chin. He rubbed his tired eyes for the hundredth time and was relieved to see headlights splash across the elderly couple's cabin before the SUV finally rolled back up to its spot next to the lawn chairs. Mitch smiled and realized that he didn't even want to finish his cigar, though it was pretty good. It had been a long week and he was ready for bed. He extinguished the cigar and tossed it into the grill.
Surveying the patio area one last time before heading inside, Mitch realized that the old man hadn't gotten out of his SUV yet. The silver chill returned to his neck. Mitch walked to the edge of his patio, staying close to the side of the cabin and watched the vehicle closely. He could barely see through the dark, but the driver was still sitting there.
Maybe he's deciding whether or not to pick up more tequila. Maybe that's it.
He waited until a figure emerged from the SUV, but the light from inside the cabin only allowed for a silhouette, and it had never seemed so far away as it did then. For the first time all week, Mitch wished he was closer to the old drunks. The driver made his way to the side door and opened it on the one dark room in the entire cabin. Mitch squinted as the door closed.
It's probably the old man, he thought. But it could also very well be the stranger returning to do to the old woman what he's already done to the old man.
No risk taker he, Mitch decided to see if a sheriff could check things out. He started toward his cellphone, which was in the cabin, but then stopped before his hand touched the backdoor. Mitch remembered letting the man go inside to use the bathroom and realized that both his cellphone and his keys could be gone right now. And, if that were true, then he'd have his answer. He'd already know who was next door, along with where he'd be heading next.
Mitch turned back to the old couple's cabin and listened. Someone had either turned off the country music or was searching for another song, but Mitch knew what he was really listening for. As he steadied his breathing, he recalled the expression on the stranger's face when he had first told him that he wouldn't give him a ride. It was rage that Mitch had seen there. Pure rage.
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Moiré
Wendell peered through the swirling branches jutting out from the
large Podocarpus tree above him and determined that he was, at long
last, drunk. He and Alice usually didn't hit the red wine so hard during
their Sunday afternoon picnics in Tenroot Park, but they had started
drinking early and the overcast weather had warned off the judgmental
families that tended to swarm around the park on nicer days. The low, grey
clouds spun above the bushy trees' limbs in Wendell's vision as Alice,
also lying face up on the large, plaid blanket, softly sang "Lido
Shuffle".
After a joining her for a few "whoa oh oh ohs", Wendell sat up and topped off their red plastic cups with the remaining wine from the fourth (and final) bottle. He turned away from Alice, sitting on his side, and admired the distance between the real world and their quiet green spot on the far northwest corner of Tenroot. These afternoons had become something of a ritual when they had relocated back to Tulsa, just after that rocky year in Salt Lake City. The wine was a welcomed late edition, and Wendell was beginning to think that Alice would rather keep these afternoons than ever consider having a baby - not that he was sure they were ever headed in that direction. He envisioned a near future where this Sunday afternoon activity would bleed outwards, spreading its warmth into Saturday nights and Monday mornings.
Through glassy eyes, Wendell glanced over his shoulder and noticed that Alice's side of the blanket was sinking into the ground. He wondered if he was having a rare drunken hallucination, or perhaps it was some odd optical illusion gained from his vantage point. Then the ground beneath Alice completely gave way and pulled her and the entire blanket underground, causing Wendell to spin/roll onto the cold grass. Alice, the blanket, and the picnic basket full of empty wine bottles had all disappeared into a hole in the earth; Wendell had spilled red wine all over himself in the process of losing them.
Wendell stared at the hole, dumbfounded, and finally called for Alice. No response, nothing but a new chill in the air causing gooseflesh to cover his arms. He shivered and, without thinking, was about to crawl into the hole himself when Alice's arm launched out from the void and she dragged herself to the surface. Disheveled and out of breath, she stood up for a moment before plopping back down at the side of the hole. In one of her hands, Wendell saw that she was clutching a fresh bottle of red wine.
"Sorry, lost the blanket and the basket. Couldn't get them back up. Got this, though," she said, giving Wendell a closer look at the bottle. The label wasn't a brand he knew and appeared to be written with an alphabet he had never seen before. He struggled to speak, to make sense of the moment. Alice wiped some sweat from her brow, smearing some dirt across her forehead as she did so. After a moment, Wendell silently pulled the wine key from his pocket, opened the new bottle, and poured.
After a joining her for a few "whoa oh oh ohs", Wendell sat up and topped off their red plastic cups with the remaining wine from the fourth (and final) bottle. He turned away from Alice, sitting on his side, and admired the distance between the real world and their quiet green spot on the far northwest corner of Tenroot. These afternoons had become something of a ritual when they had relocated back to Tulsa, just after that rocky year in Salt Lake City. The wine was a welcomed late edition, and Wendell was beginning to think that Alice would rather keep these afternoons than ever consider having a baby - not that he was sure they were ever headed in that direction. He envisioned a near future where this Sunday afternoon activity would bleed outwards, spreading its warmth into Saturday nights and Monday mornings.
Through glassy eyes, Wendell glanced over his shoulder and noticed that Alice's side of the blanket was sinking into the ground. He wondered if he was having a rare drunken hallucination, or perhaps it was some odd optical illusion gained from his vantage point. Then the ground beneath Alice completely gave way and pulled her and the entire blanket underground, causing Wendell to spin/roll onto the cold grass. Alice, the blanket, and the picnic basket full of empty wine bottles had all disappeared into a hole in the earth; Wendell had spilled red wine all over himself in the process of losing them.
Wendell stared at the hole, dumbfounded, and finally called for Alice. No response, nothing but a new chill in the air causing gooseflesh to cover his arms. He shivered and, without thinking, was about to crawl into the hole himself when Alice's arm launched out from the void and she dragged herself to the surface. Disheveled and out of breath, she stood up for a moment before plopping back down at the side of the hole. In one of her hands, Wendell saw that she was clutching a fresh bottle of red wine.
"Sorry, lost the blanket and the basket. Couldn't get them back up. Got this, though," she said, giving Wendell a closer look at the bottle. The label wasn't a brand he knew and appeared to be written with an alphabet he had never seen before. He struggled to speak, to make sense of the moment. Alice wiped some sweat from her brow, smearing some dirt across her forehead as she did so. After a moment, Wendell silently pulled the wine key from his pocket, opened the new bottle, and poured.
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Wichita Cafe
After over thirty minutes of driving around, searching for something special, Mark saw the sign. Wichita Cafe, it read, absent of any visible irony. Mark cocked his head and glanced at the car's GPS, just in case he had accidentally driven through a wormhole during his quest.
Still in Santa Rosa, which is - I'm pretty sure - nowhere near Wichita.
He smiled as he pulled into the tiny, poorly-lit parking lot. "I think this counts, Sandra," he said to the empty Honda Civic.
"You should get out of the car every once in a while, try to soak up some local color," Sandra had told him the night before he set off for the cross-country trip to Phoenix. "I did a similar trip back in college with some friends. We hit half a dozen diners and met some really cool people along the way."
"Oh, and are you still in touch with all of them?" Mark's dry delivery caught her off guard. Sandra began to speak, but he cut her off with, "How is Big Bertha from Little Rock these days?" She answered him with an arched eyebrow as he took a sip of the fruity cider she had offered to him in lieu of any real alcohol.
However, Sandra's advice had tapped him on his shoulder earlier that night as Paula, the gothy front desk clerk at the Villager Inn, offered him the easiest and most convenient options for dinner during his stop in Santa Rosa.
"There's a Frizzy Frog, a Topper's, and a Pyro-Burger this way," she said pointing a black fingernail to the left. "You could also go to Bistro Bonaventure down this way, if they're still open this late," she said pointing to the right.
One never-quite-desperate search later, Mark had found his place: the Wichita Cafe, which was (according to the GPS) a good eight hours outside of Wichita, Kansas.
Mark walked inside and was immediately glad for his choice. Valentine's Day decorations hung from ceiling fans, which would have been more appropriate in February. A older woman in jeans stood behind a host station and discussed marinara with a nearby bald man.
"If it's right for spaghetti, it's right for cheese sticks."
"I don't agree," the bald man said as he noticed Mark, offering then a weak smile as a greeting. The woman turned her attention to their new guest. Mark felt a moment of judgment and was about to ask if they were still open, but she welcomed him with a simple question.
"Just one?"
He nodded and she led Mark to a booth along the front of the diner. In a nearby booth, he noticed a youngish couple sitting side-by-side, both facing toward him. Mark had never really thought about it before, but it made sense that the proper seating tactic when dining alone would be to face away from them. After all, he figured, it would be awkward to face the couple as he ate. Plus, as judgmental as the assessment made him feel, these weren't the "really cool" people from Sandra's storied trip. They seemed sad and quiet for their years; their clothes were drab, as were the expressions on their faces.
Trying to seem natural about it, Mark quickly sat with his back to the couple and asked for a Coke. The jeans woman told him his waitress would be out in a minute before returning to Marinara Talk with the bald man.
Mark took out his phone and enabled data usage so that he could find something to read from the internet. As he searched his bookmarks, the guy behind him exploding into a fit of coughing and Mark could hear his girlfriend pat him on the back.
It might be his sister. Probably not, but maybe.
A little while later the waitress appeared and set a menu down in front of Mark.
"Hiya, how are ya?" she asked. She wore a dress that looked more like what a cleaning woman would wear, though Mark struggled to pinpoint the distinction.
"I'm good," he said. His mind struggled for the good opener that would lead to a bit of conversation. That was, after all, the entire reason why he'd come here to the Wichita Cafe rather than Pyro-Burger or Topper's, whatever a Topper's was. However nothing arrived and he was left with only, "Could I get a Coke?"
"We have Pepsi. That okay?"
Mark nodded and the waitress disappeared into the kitchen. He saw that the menu was generic and was disappointed that it didn't have the name of the diner on the front. He'd have to remember to use his phone to get a picture of the sign out front. With that thought, another wet storm of phlegm erupted from the drab fellow facing his back. Trying his best to ignore the unappetizing sounds, Mark opened the menu and checked out the dinner entrees.
The waitress reemerged from the kitchen and set a glass of Pepsi in front of Mark. He instantly noticed that there was only three or four ice cubes, slivers really, floating near the top of the glass. Mark had heard about this phenomenon before, that of withholding ice in favor of more beverage, but had never seen it in practice. In that moment, he was glad that he'd found the Wichita Cafe.
"Do you know what you want?"
Mark asked the waitress about a few items on the entree list, but settled on her recommendation of pot roast with mashed potatoes. She walked over to the couple behind him and Mark pretended to read an article he had pulled up on his phone.
"Did you decide on something?" she asked them.
"No, we're still looking," the drab girl replied. Mark could hear the waitress walk back into the kitchen.
"Chili would be nice," the guy told his girlfriend. His tone was low, but borderline whiny all the same.
"I don't feel like chili," she said, scolding.
Sharing a meal? I hope that's because they're not very hungry. If not...well, it's not like I can just offer to buy dinner for strangers unprovoked, can I?
The waitress returned from the kitchen and the girl called for her.
"Miss? I was wondering something. See, we're heading south, but it's getting late and, well, do you know where we could get a cheap place for the night? All we need is a warm room with a bed."
Mark felt like he knew what was coming next.
"Well, the Villager Inn, just off I-40 is probably what you're looking for," the waitress told them.
Bad call, Flo. First of all, the Drab Twins obviously want a mo-tel and the Villager is a ho-tel. Big price difference. Also, Gothy Paula made it sound like I snagged the last available room.
"Yeah, okay. Thanks." The guy exploded into another coughing fit.
"Sure thing, sweetie." The waitress then appeared next to Mark with his pot roast and mashed potatoes, no doubt likely covered in spittle and germs courtesy of the coughing dude.
Nice flight pattern, taking my food right by intensive care.
"Thanks! Could I get some extra napkins and a little more ice in my Coke?"
"It's Pepsi."
"Right."
Mark quietly ate his dinner and checked out a few more websites on his phone. The pot roast was chewy, but tasted fine. After a few minutes, the drab couple quietly left the diner. Despite their sullen demeanor, Mark felt bad for them and hoped they would find the warm bed they were looking for. He made a few attempts at small talk with the waitress, but she seemed uninterested in chatting so close to the end of an undoubtedly long shift at the Wichita.
When Mark returned to the Villager Inn, he saw the couple again as they stormed out of the front entrance. The girl's eyes were fiery from a recent argument, very likely with Gothy Paula. She turned her intense gaze toward Mark and he surprised himself.
"Hey, Wichita Cafe, right? I thought I heard that you were looking for a place to crash. I know it's not ideal, but I've got an extra bed in my room." The couple looked to each other and saw exhaustion mirrored on their faces. Mark hastily added, "No charge, of course. Just a little company would be nice."
Back in the hotel room, they sat on the queen-sized beds and chatted for a while. Mark offered them snacks from his travel bag, which the couple greedily accepted. The sullen pair perked up a bit with food in their stomachs, but Mark's concerns grew. Gaping holes appeared in their stories they told him, inconsistent in such aspects as where they were from and where they were going. Mark, hoping to not cause anger in point out such things, played it cool and didn't appear suspicious. They eventually took turns getting ready for bed. While the guy was in the bathroom, the girl made a sexual pass at Mark. It took effort, but Mark handled the situation perfectly and spared her of any residual embarrassment. As they lied down to sleep, the guy's coughing fits returned. Hours and hours passed before Mark could sleep, finally finding solace during the early hours of the morning. The next day, the couple sheepishly asked Mark if they could have another night in the room on his credit card, a gift. Mark quickly devised a lie, telling them that he was using his company's expense account to travel and could only put one single night on it. After he left the hotel, however, the couple managed to get back into the room and stayed another two full days. When Mark received the itemized bill two weeks later, it was clear that the couple had wrecked the place and had stolen several items from the room, including the TV and several pieces of furniture. Mark found himself truly angry for the first time in his life. He spent weeks trying to locate the couple, unrelenting obsession always tapping at his shoulder. The trail went cold from time to time, but then he'd suddenly find a trace again, getting close. And forever on this chase toward rightful justice, he was finding out things about them that he never wanted to know.
But they'd win in the end. Even if theirs was no sort of life to be lived, they'd win. Of course they would.
Mark was still lost in this elaborate story as the couple walked around him outside the Villager Inn. The girl either didn't recognize him from the diner or simply didn't care. Mark didn't turn back to watch them get in their car and drive away, though he did briefly wonder where "next" would be for them.
Soon after, he was in his room looking at the picture he had taken of the Wichita Cafe's sign. It looked smaller on his cellphone, as did the cafe itself. He decided he'd wait and send the picture to Sandra when he got to Phoenix, maybe with a few others he'd take along the way.
Still in Santa Rosa, which is - I'm pretty sure - nowhere near Wichita.
He smiled as he pulled into the tiny, poorly-lit parking lot. "I think this counts, Sandra," he said to the empty Honda Civic.
"You should get out of the car every once in a while, try to soak up some local color," Sandra had told him the night before he set off for the cross-country trip to Phoenix. "I did a similar trip back in college with some friends. We hit half a dozen diners and met some really cool people along the way."
"Oh, and are you still in touch with all of them?" Mark's dry delivery caught her off guard. Sandra began to speak, but he cut her off with, "How is Big Bertha from Little Rock these days?" She answered him with an arched eyebrow as he took a sip of the fruity cider she had offered to him in lieu of any real alcohol.
However, Sandra's advice had tapped him on his shoulder earlier that night as Paula, the gothy front desk clerk at the Villager Inn, offered him the easiest and most convenient options for dinner during his stop in Santa Rosa.
"There's a Frizzy Frog, a Topper's, and a Pyro-Burger this way," she said pointing a black fingernail to the left. "You could also go to Bistro Bonaventure down this way, if they're still open this late," she said pointing to the right.
One never-quite-desperate search later, Mark had found his place: the Wichita Cafe, which was (according to the GPS) a good eight hours outside of Wichita, Kansas.
Mark walked inside and was immediately glad for his choice. Valentine's Day decorations hung from ceiling fans, which would have been more appropriate in February. A older woman in jeans stood behind a host station and discussed marinara with a nearby bald man.
"If it's right for spaghetti, it's right for cheese sticks."
"I don't agree," the bald man said as he noticed Mark, offering then a weak smile as a greeting. The woman turned her attention to their new guest. Mark felt a moment of judgment and was about to ask if they were still open, but she welcomed him with a simple question.
"Just one?"
He nodded and she led Mark to a booth along the front of the diner. In a nearby booth, he noticed a youngish couple sitting side-by-side, both facing toward him. Mark had never really thought about it before, but it made sense that the proper seating tactic when dining alone would be to face away from them. After all, he figured, it would be awkward to face the couple as he ate. Plus, as judgmental as the assessment made him feel, these weren't the "really cool" people from Sandra's storied trip. They seemed sad and quiet for their years; their clothes were drab, as were the expressions on their faces.
Trying to seem natural about it, Mark quickly sat with his back to the couple and asked for a Coke. The jeans woman told him his waitress would be out in a minute before returning to Marinara Talk with the bald man.
Mark took out his phone and enabled data usage so that he could find something to read from the internet. As he searched his bookmarks, the guy behind him exploding into a fit of coughing and Mark could hear his girlfriend pat him on the back.
It might be his sister. Probably not, but maybe.
A little while later the waitress appeared and set a menu down in front of Mark.
"Hiya, how are ya?" she asked. She wore a dress that looked more like what a cleaning woman would wear, though Mark struggled to pinpoint the distinction.
"I'm good," he said. His mind struggled for the good opener that would lead to a bit of conversation. That was, after all, the entire reason why he'd come here to the Wichita Cafe rather than Pyro-Burger or Topper's, whatever a Topper's was. However nothing arrived and he was left with only, "Could I get a Coke?"
"We have Pepsi. That okay?"
Mark nodded and the waitress disappeared into the kitchen. He saw that the menu was generic and was disappointed that it didn't have the name of the diner on the front. He'd have to remember to use his phone to get a picture of the sign out front. With that thought, another wet storm of phlegm erupted from the drab fellow facing his back. Trying his best to ignore the unappetizing sounds, Mark opened the menu and checked out the dinner entrees.
The waitress reemerged from the kitchen and set a glass of Pepsi in front of Mark. He instantly noticed that there was only three or four ice cubes, slivers really, floating near the top of the glass. Mark had heard about this phenomenon before, that of withholding ice in favor of more beverage, but had never seen it in practice. In that moment, he was glad that he'd found the Wichita Cafe.
"Do you know what you want?"
Mark asked the waitress about a few items on the entree list, but settled on her recommendation of pot roast with mashed potatoes. She walked over to the couple behind him and Mark pretended to read an article he had pulled up on his phone.
"Did you decide on something?" she asked them.
"No, we're still looking," the drab girl replied. Mark could hear the waitress walk back into the kitchen.
"Chili would be nice," the guy told his girlfriend. His tone was low, but borderline whiny all the same.
"I don't feel like chili," she said, scolding.
Sharing a meal? I hope that's because they're not very hungry. If not...well, it's not like I can just offer to buy dinner for strangers unprovoked, can I?
The waitress returned from the kitchen and the girl called for her.
"Miss? I was wondering something. See, we're heading south, but it's getting late and, well, do you know where we could get a cheap place for the night? All we need is a warm room with a bed."
Mark felt like he knew what was coming next.
"Well, the Villager Inn, just off I-40 is probably what you're looking for," the waitress told them.
Bad call, Flo. First of all, the Drab Twins obviously want a mo-tel and the Villager is a ho-tel. Big price difference. Also, Gothy Paula made it sound like I snagged the last available room.
"Yeah, okay. Thanks." The guy exploded into another coughing fit.
"Sure thing, sweetie." The waitress then appeared next to Mark with his pot roast and mashed potatoes, no doubt likely covered in spittle and germs courtesy of the coughing dude.
Nice flight pattern, taking my food right by intensive care.
"Thanks! Could I get some extra napkins and a little more ice in my Coke?"
"It's Pepsi."
"Right."
Mark quietly ate his dinner and checked out a few more websites on his phone. The pot roast was chewy, but tasted fine. After a few minutes, the drab couple quietly left the diner. Despite their sullen demeanor, Mark felt bad for them and hoped they would find the warm bed they were looking for. He made a few attempts at small talk with the waitress, but she seemed uninterested in chatting so close to the end of an undoubtedly long shift at the Wichita.
When Mark returned to the Villager Inn, he saw the couple again as they stormed out of the front entrance. The girl's eyes were fiery from a recent argument, very likely with Gothy Paula. She turned her intense gaze toward Mark and he surprised himself.
"Hey, Wichita Cafe, right? I thought I heard that you were looking for a place to crash. I know it's not ideal, but I've got an extra bed in my room." The couple looked to each other and saw exhaustion mirrored on their faces. Mark hastily added, "No charge, of course. Just a little company would be nice."
Back in the hotel room, they sat on the queen-sized beds and chatted for a while. Mark offered them snacks from his travel bag, which the couple greedily accepted. The sullen pair perked up a bit with food in their stomachs, but Mark's concerns grew. Gaping holes appeared in their stories they told him, inconsistent in such aspects as where they were from and where they were going. Mark, hoping to not cause anger in point out such things, played it cool and didn't appear suspicious. They eventually took turns getting ready for bed. While the guy was in the bathroom, the girl made a sexual pass at Mark. It took effort, but Mark handled the situation perfectly and spared her of any residual embarrassment. As they lied down to sleep, the guy's coughing fits returned. Hours and hours passed before Mark could sleep, finally finding solace during the early hours of the morning. The next day, the couple sheepishly asked Mark if they could have another night in the room on his credit card, a gift. Mark quickly devised a lie, telling them that he was using his company's expense account to travel and could only put one single night on it. After he left the hotel, however, the couple managed to get back into the room and stayed another two full days. When Mark received the itemized bill two weeks later, it was clear that the couple had wrecked the place and had stolen several items from the room, including the TV and several pieces of furniture. Mark found himself truly angry for the first time in his life. He spent weeks trying to locate the couple, unrelenting obsession always tapping at his shoulder. The trail went cold from time to time, but then he'd suddenly find a trace again, getting close. And forever on this chase toward rightful justice, he was finding out things about them that he never wanted to know.
But they'd win in the end. Even if theirs was no sort of life to be lived, they'd win. Of course they would.
Mark was still lost in this elaborate story as the couple walked around him outside the Villager Inn. The girl either didn't recognize him from the diner or simply didn't care. Mark didn't turn back to watch them get in their car and drive away, though he did briefly wonder where "next" would be for them.
Soon after, he was in his room looking at the picture he had taken of the Wichita Cafe's sign. It looked smaller on his cellphone, as did the cafe itself. He decided he'd wait and send the picture to Sandra when he got to Phoenix, maybe with a few others he'd take along the way.
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
The Award
I'm not sure if it still exists today, but my elementary and
middle schools (first Mountain Gap, then Challenger) had an
advanced academics program called SPACE*. The so-called gifted kids in the
program spent about a fifth of their class time with special teachers
doing fun and educational projects while learning at an accelerated
rate. In high school, these students would be automatic candidates for
advanced placement classes, earning college credit before even stepping
foot on a university campus.
I didn't actually know any of this stuff when my 2nd grade teacher recommended that I be tested to see if I qualified for SPACE. But like much of my adult life, I was eager to be accepted regardless of the consequences. There's something extremely attractive about exclusivity. However, the test proved to be too difficult and my teacher notified my mother that I wasn't right for the program. This was a huge disappointment at the time, though my mom consoled me with the fact that the recommendation itself was an intrinsic honor.
The next year, I was recommended by another teacher to take the 3rd grade version of the test. The ideas behind the questions and challenges were basically the same: spacial reasoning, problem solving, etc. Even though this was decades ago, I can still remember one puzzle from it now, and only because I'm certain that I got it wrong. I was asked to piece together silhouetted sections of a cardboard horse in a set amount of time, but I placed a part of its body where the horse's neck should have gone. Poor little pony. Regardless, I apparently did better than I had the first time and was given the SPACE seal of approval, which was a note to my teacher and a phone call to my mom. Soon after that, I was ushered into a gleaming world of magic and wonder.
Well, not exactly.
Twice a week, the other SPACE kids and I would go to a classroom with a special teacher and spend the full second part of the day there. The teacher, Mrs. K, was a fun and slightly eccentric woman in her thirties. She kept us busy for much of the time with logic problems, the kind where you have to figure out what fictional characters did and had based on given clues. For instance one of the clues might be "Bobby hates sledding and one of the girls brought a baseball glove." So, then we'd go to the grid and mark an X at the cross section of "Bobby" and "sledding", along with all of the boys and "baseball glove". You can imagine how quickly the charm of these little gems faded.
But there was one large, month-long project that I'll never forget. One day Mrs. K announced to the class that we'd be divided into teams and tasked with building model bridges out of toothpicks. Even the thought of it now fills me with an existential dread. Mrs. K told us that each team would present their model after four weeks and she would judge the results based on certain qualities, the most important naturally being how much weight the bridges could carry. But she hinted that other attributes like best design and most creative features would also be considered. It sounded like fun at the time and, more importantly, a long break from the world of stupid logic problems.
I was placed in a normal team (that qualifier, "normal", will make sense soon) and we began talking about ideas for structure and the benefits of glue over other binding agents, such as Scotch tape or bubble gum. I wasn't as much interested in these conversations as I was interested in doodling on graph paper and making jokes, which Mrs. K took notice of pretty quickly. This lack of focus continued and, at the end of the second week, I found myself heading up a new team. Mrs. K had rounded up all of the "dead weight kids" from each team, put us all in a group, and named me their leader.
I was a little offended to be singled out as a shiftless layabout at first, but I quickly embraced my role as king of the too-cool-for-bridges squad and announced to my lazy cohorts, Mrs. K, and all of the normal teams that we would continue goofing off. I reasoned that we'd only need a couple of days at most to build the toothpick bridges. After all, these weren't real bridges and no lives were at risk if our bridge was the worst. And yes, our team was destined to lose by the very nature of our origin story - this inherent limitation was not lost on me at the time.
As the following days and weeks went by, Mrs. K would occasionally check in on my group's progress. Having nothing to show in terms of actual work, I would shield from her whatever funny cartoon I was working on and report that we were still in the planning stage, but that everything was perfectly on schedule. Then she'd walk off and I would nervously look around the room to the normal teams, all of them hard at work on mostly-completed, perfect little toothpick bridges. Then I'd shrug and go back to my hilarious doodles.
Reality set in on the day before the competition. I'd practically trained the rest of my team to blow off any notion of work, so I found myself alone on an island of panic. I quickly learned that toothpicks are a tricky building material and my very rudimentary sketch of a bridge was a poor blueprint. I spent the last hours of class time in failure mode, but I held my brave smile anytime Mrs. K walked by with her left eyebrow arched. I told her that I'd be finishing the model myself at home that night.
I don't remember much from that evening. I probably begged my mom and sister for help, but I think I was left to go at it solo, one glue-drenched toothpick at a time. I stayed up past my bedtime constructing the world's worst model bridge. It was the kind of work that's both sloppy and slow, done neither fast nor correctly. At the end of the night, I sat back and marveled at the slight, precarious embodiment of procrastination that I had created. It couldn't support an ant. Right now you might be thinking two things: 1) that building a bridge out of toothpicks doesn't sound so hard (you're wrong and probably not a nine-year-old kid), and 2) that my bridge probably wasn't as bad as I'm describing it (you're right - it was much worse).
The next day's grand finale competition went about as well as anybody could have expected. Mrs. K elected my team to go first, just to get us out of the way, really. She added a series of floppy disks suspended by string to test the strength of the bridge and, surprisingly, my sad model didn't break or fall apart. It just kind of leaned in until it touched its cardboard base...and stayed leaned in once Mrs. K removed the weights. Regardless, I counted the weak demonstration as a major victory, though any bravado that I might have exhibited that day was there purely to mask embarrassment. I'll spare you the details of the awesome designs and constructions that the other teams presented, as their victory is not what this story is about.
After each of the bridges was tested and judged, Mrs. K began handing out awards. They were certificates that she had created and printed out herself, each with 1980's-era clip art and titles such as "Strongest Design" and "Best Teamwork". I clapped along with the others, occasionally pretending to be shocked when we failed to win a category. After all of the awards had been handed out, Mrs. K gave a short speech about the importance of leadership. I sunk in my chair, thinking that the hammer would surely fall my way once the moral of the story kicked in.
She looked at me and smiled; I cringed. Then Mrs. K surprised me. She told everyone that I had shown a special quality in leadership and that I deserved a special award for what I had done. Her smile grew as she handed me - not my group, but just me - a certificate with my name on it. The picture displayed a man treading water, so that only his head was visible. Surrounding him, fins peaked through the surface of the water, alluding to the deadly sharks circling him below. Atop the certificate read, "Coolness Under Pressure". It was my very own award, and believe me when I tell you that I earned it.
* For the life of me, I can't remember what the SPACE acronym stood for. I've tried searching for mentions of it online to no avail, which leads me to believe that it was a local program for Huntsville, AL. It makes perfect sense that the powers-that-were would choose a term to reflect our civic Rocket City, USA identity. However, the fact that I also couldn't remember what SPACE stood for when I was still in the program tells me that I probably wasn't the best candidate for it.
I didn't actually know any of this stuff when my 2nd grade teacher recommended that I be tested to see if I qualified for SPACE. But like much of my adult life, I was eager to be accepted regardless of the consequences. There's something extremely attractive about exclusivity. However, the test proved to be too difficult and my teacher notified my mother that I wasn't right for the program. This was a huge disappointment at the time, though my mom consoled me with the fact that the recommendation itself was an intrinsic honor.
The next year, I was recommended by another teacher to take the 3rd grade version of the test. The ideas behind the questions and challenges were basically the same: spacial reasoning, problem solving, etc. Even though this was decades ago, I can still remember one puzzle from it now, and only because I'm certain that I got it wrong. I was asked to piece together silhouetted sections of a cardboard horse in a set amount of time, but I placed a part of its body where the horse's neck should have gone. Poor little pony. Regardless, I apparently did better than I had the first time and was given the SPACE seal of approval, which was a note to my teacher and a phone call to my mom. Soon after that, I was ushered into a gleaming world of magic and wonder.
Well, not exactly.
Twice a week, the other SPACE kids and I would go to a classroom with a special teacher and spend the full second part of the day there. The teacher, Mrs. K, was a fun and slightly eccentric woman in her thirties. She kept us busy for much of the time with logic problems, the kind where you have to figure out what fictional characters did and had based on given clues. For instance one of the clues might be "Bobby hates sledding and one of the girls brought a baseball glove." So, then we'd go to the grid and mark an X at the cross section of "Bobby" and "sledding", along with all of the boys and "baseball glove". You can imagine how quickly the charm of these little gems faded.
But there was one large, month-long project that I'll never forget. One day Mrs. K announced to the class that we'd be divided into teams and tasked with building model bridges out of toothpicks. Even the thought of it now fills me with an existential dread. Mrs. K told us that each team would present their model after four weeks and she would judge the results based on certain qualities, the most important naturally being how much weight the bridges could carry. But she hinted that other attributes like best design and most creative features would also be considered. It sounded like fun at the time and, more importantly, a long break from the world of stupid logic problems.
I was placed in a normal team (that qualifier, "normal", will make sense soon) and we began talking about ideas for structure and the benefits of glue over other binding agents, such as Scotch tape or bubble gum. I wasn't as much interested in these conversations as I was interested in doodling on graph paper and making jokes, which Mrs. K took notice of pretty quickly. This lack of focus continued and, at the end of the second week, I found myself heading up a new team. Mrs. K had rounded up all of the "dead weight kids" from each team, put us all in a group, and named me their leader.
I was a little offended to be singled out as a shiftless layabout at first, but I quickly embraced my role as king of the too-cool-for-bridges squad and announced to my lazy cohorts, Mrs. K, and all of the normal teams that we would continue goofing off. I reasoned that we'd only need a couple of days at most to build the toothpick bridges. After all, these weren't real bridges and no lives were at risk if our bridge was the worst. And yes, our team was destined to lose by the very nature of our origin story - this inherent limitation was not lost on me at the time.
As the following days and weeks went by, Mrs. K would occasionally check in on my group's progress. Having nothing to show in terms of actual work, I would shield from her whatever funny cartoon I was working on and report that we were still in the planning stage, but that everything was perfectly on schedule. Then she'd walk off and I would nervously look around the room to the normal teams, all of them hard at work on mostly-completed, perfect little toothpick bridges. Then I'd shrug and go back to my hilarious doodles.
Reality set in on the day before the competition. I'd practically trained the rest of my team to blow off any notion of work, so I found myself alone on an island of panic. I quickly learned that toothpicks are a tricky building material and my very rudimentary sketch of a bridge was a poor blueprint. I spent the last hours of class time in failure mode, but I held my brave smile anytime Mrs. K walked by with her left eyebrow arched. I told her that I'd be finishing the model myself at home that night.
I don't remember much from that evening. I probably begged my mom and sister for help, but I think I was left to go at it solo, one glue-drenched toothpick at a time. I stayed up past my bedtime constructing the world's worst model bridge. It was the kind of work that's both sloppy and slow, done neither fast nor correctly. At the end of the night, I sat back and marveled at the slight, precarious embodiment of procrastination that I had created. It couldn't support an ant. Right now you might be thinking two things: 1) that building a bridge out of toothpicks doesn't sound so hard (you're wrong and probably not a nine-year-old kid), and 2) that my bridge probably wasn't as bad as I'm describing it (you're right - it was much worse).
The next day's grand finale competition went about as well as anybody could have expected. Mrs. K elected my team to go first, just to get us out of the way, really. She added a series of floppy disks suspended by string to test the strength of the bridge and, surprisingly, my sad model didn't break or fall apart. It just kind of leaned in until it touched its cardboard base...and stayed leaned in once Mrs. K removed the weights. Regardless, I counted the weak demonstration as a major victory, though any bravado that I might have exhibited that day was there purely to mask embarrassment. I'll spare you the details of the awesome designs and constructions that the other teams presented, as their victory is not what this story is about.
After each of the bridges was tested and judged, Mrs. K began handing out awards. They were certificates that she had created and printed out herself, each with 1980's-era clip art and titles such as "Strongest Design" and "Best Teamwork". I clapped along with the others, occasionally pretending to be shocked when we failed to win a category. After all of the awards had been handed out, Mrs. K gave a short speech about the importance of leadership. I sunk in my chair, thinking that the hammer would surely fall my way once the moral of the story kicked in.
She looked at me and smiled; I cringed. Then Mrs. K surprised me. She told everyone that I had shown a special quality in leadership and that I deserved a special award for what I had done. Her smile grew as she handed me - not my group, but just me - a certificate with my name on it. The picture displayed a man treading water, so that only his head was visible. Surrounding him, fins peaked through the surface of the water, alluding to the deadly sharks circling him below. Atop the certificate read, "Coolness Under Pressure". It was my very own award, and believe me when I tell you that I earned it.
* For the life of me, I can't remember what the SPACE acronym stood for. I've tried searching for mentions of it online to no avail, which leads me to believe that it was a local program for Huntsville, AL. It makes perfect sense that the powers-that-were would choose a term to reflect our civic Rocket City, USA identity. However, the fact that I also couldn't remember what SPACE stood for when I was still in the program tells me that I probably wasn't the best candidate for it.
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Counterfeit Captivity
Kirby Bresling had almost served his first year at Belew Correctional before he pieced together that he wasn't being held in a real prison. His first hint was that he hadn't received any visitors since he'd arrived, nor did any of his phone calls ever reach friends or family. The guards, wearing their mismatched uniforms - perhaps another clue that the prison wasn't official - would tell Kirby that nobody loved a convict and that he should just stop thinking about the outside world. The other 27 inmates at Belew seemed to have accepted this sad philosophy, though Kirby never stopped thinking that the outside world cared...and also that 28 total inmates was a shockingly low population for a prison.
Meals consisted of either name brand microwaveable dinners or takeout food from one of the neighboring town's many chain restaurants. On holidays, the prisoners were treated to home-cooked meals courtesy of the warden's wife, Erika Eleniak of Baywatch fame. However, Kirby detected a certain ingredient in everything they were served, regardless of the meal's origin. Mozzarella Geoff, a large inmate known for his love of stuffed crust pizza, told Kirby that the kitchen staff added elderberry to every food item so that specially-bred dogs could easily locate convicts if they tried to escape.
Escape. The word kept circling in Kirby's mind. The prison's many oddities, coupled with the fact that he hadn't committed a crime or faced any sort of trial, convinced Kirby that he needed to escape if he was ever going to breathe free air again. He asked around and was told to seek the help of Greater Than James, a medium-sized inmate known for his love of comparison symbols. Greater Than James told Kirby that he'd need to hide out for a few weeks in one of the many unused cell blocks, staying out of sight there until any search parties or "find 'em soirees" would pass. He'd also need to avoid any food laced with elderberry, since the dog kennel was right next to the shortest fence in the prison yard. If Kirby could pull this off, Greater Than James assured him, he'd get his real chance to leave Belew Correctional for good.
And, well, that's what Kirby did.
After the final search had come back empty-handed, the dogs' heads lowered in shameful defeat, Kirby waited until prisoner nap time and took off on foot. He crawled right past three guards who were playing poker with some of the we're-not-sleepy inmates. Avoiding the dog kennel completely (even though he'd heard that one of the females had just had puppies), Kirby scaled the second tallest fence surrounding the fake prison and he skipped off into the late evening. Unfortunately, skipping caused him to twist an ankle so he limped the rest of the way to town, making it to a bus stop just in time to catch a bus without having to wait another ten minutes for the next one. He took the bus all the way to the end of its line in north Cincinnati, where he stole a car and drove it to his home in nearby Columbus.
In the years that followed, Kirby anonymously stayed in touch with his friends still held in counterfeit captivity through social media and disguised personal visits. He would regale them with tales of his life in the free world, which they would pretend to be impressed to hear about. Kirby also became a fan of Baywatch re-runs, and had to resist the urge to send fan letters to the warden's wife. And even though it wasn't something he ever would have imagined that he'd do in freedom back in the days when he was still holed up at Belew Correctional, Kirby added elderberry to every meal that he ate for the rest of his life.
Meals consisted of either name brand microwaveable dinners or takeout food from one of the neighboring town's many chain restaurants. On holidays, the prisoners were treated to home-cooked meals courtesy of the warden's wife, Erika Eleniak of Baywatch fame. However, Kirby detected a certain ingredient in everything they were served, regardless of the meal's origin. Mozzarella Geoff, a large inmate known for his love of stuffed crust pizza, told Kirby that the kitchen staff added elderberry to every food item so that specially-bred dogs could easily locate convicts if they tried to escape.
Escape. The word kept circling in Kirby's mind. The prison's many oddities, coupled with the fact that he hadn't committed a crime or faced any sort of trial, convinced Kirby that he needed to escape if he was ever going to breathe free air again. He asked around and was told to seek the help of Greater Than James, a medium-sized inmate known for his love of comparison symbols. Greater Than James told Kirby that he'd need to hide out for a few weeks in one of the many unused cell blocks, staying out of sight there until any search parties or "find 'em soirees" would pass. He'd also need to avoid any food laced with elderberry, since the dog kennel was right next to the shortest fence in the prison yard. If Kirby could pull this off, Greater Than James assured him, he'd get his real chance to leave Belew Correctional for good.
And, well, that's what Kirby did.
After the final search had come back empty-handed, the dogs' heads lowered in shameful defeat, Kirby waited until prisoner nap time and took off on foot. He crawled right past three guards who were playing poker with some of the we're-not-sleepy inmates. Avoiding the dog kennel completely (even though he'd heard that one of the females had just had puppies), Kirby scaled the second tallest fence surrounding the fake prison and he skipped off into the late evening. Unfortunately, skipping caused him to twist an ankle so he limped the rest of the way to town, making it to a bus stop just in time to catch a bus without having to wait another ten minutes for the next one. He took the bus all the way to the end of its line in north Cincinnati, where he stole a car and drove it to his home in nearby Columbus.
In the years that followed, Kirby anonymously stayed in touch with his friends still held in counterfeit captivity through social media and disguised personal visits. He would regale them with tales of his life in the free world, which they would pretend to be impressed to hear about. Kirby also became a fan of Baywatch re-runs, and had to resist the urge to send fan letters to the warden's wife. And even though it wasn't something he ever would have imagined that he'd do in freedom back in the days when he was still holed up at Belew Correctional, Kirby added elderberry to every meal that he ate for the rest of his life.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Roller Coaster
Clyde awoke at dawn and went to the refrigerator. He felt compelled to check on a turkey sandwich that he had made the previous night. Due to the elongated surface area of the bread he had bought the week before, the sandwich was very large, too big to fit into one Ziploc bag. Clyde had been forced to seal the two halves separately.
Sitting side-by-side on the top shelf, Clyde saw that both halves were still sealed in their separate zipper storage baggies, but only one half of the sandwich had been preserved. The other half, the part laying on the right-hand side of the shelf, had visibly spoiled overnight. He began to think of what possible variables could have caused the strange inconsistency when he heard Gresham and Nell take their posts at the roller coaster next door.
"Hey, Nell!" Gresham called out to the tall, surly girl across the platform. "What'd you get into last night? I heard you let Shawn Decker get to home plate." Gresham wheezed out a harsh laugh as he crossed his thin, pale arms. He was wearing another punk-looking, sleeveless shirt. Clyde had never heard of anybody named Gresham before, but knew his name from overhearing many conversations between the two college dropouts during their daily shifts at the roller coaster.
Nell lowered her sunglasses and extended a middle finger in Gresham's direction. Still holding it up, she walked over to a large, lectern-sized control panel and pressed the offending finger onto a red button. Grinding clicks and mechanical groans sounded as the roller coaster roared to life. Nell flipped her hair from one side of her head to the other. Clyde had observed that, on weekends, she liked to dye it dark red and spike it up, Mohawk-style. However, it hung in a pinkish blonde, limp cascade on this Tuesday morning, the red not entirely washed out from the previous weekend.
Clyde stared at the vulgar young people through his kitchen window and thought back to the days when the lot next to his house was nothing more than a pile of wreckage. He missed the chirping of birds and the gentle spraying sounds of lawn sprinklers the most. All of his neighbors had moved away once they heard that a single-standing roller coaster would take the place of the demolished Blockbuster Video, but Clyde had opted to stick around and see just how bad it would be before deciding if he would leave or not.
Three short months later, he had to admit that it was pretty bad. The kinetic vibrations from the coaster's first large drop tended to rattle Clyde's wine glasses and often knocked picture frames off of the walls. Also, the loop-the-loop was right next to his bedroom, so the screams of elated passengers would keep him up until the roller coaster closed for the night, usually around midnight.
Taking a deep breath, Clyde lifted the window and called out to the lone-ride carnival employees.
"Morning, gang!" he called to them in his most chipper voice. The ornery teens glared up at him. Clyde cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah. Hi. I'm not sure if you got my letter last week, but would it be possible for you to ask your guests to not litter or, you know, urinate upon my lawn?"
"I'm sorry?" Nell asked him, cupping her ear. She was standing further away from his house than Gresham, but Clyde suspected that she had heard him just fine.
"It's just...the noise is bad enough, but the litter and, you know, urine smell is just getting intolerable."
Nell locked eyes with Clyde and began to walk toward his kitchen window. One of the long roller coaster trains rushed along the rails, grinding to a halt in the platform's passenger loading station. Without stopping or even looking down, Nell skipped up onto one of the cars and glided across it, glided as if it had been there for her all along. She pushed by Gresham, passing by him without taking her eyes off of Clyde. She then stopped and rested her forearms on the platform's railing, which stood less than three feet away from Clyde's window.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you," she said to Clyde. Her voice was low and sexy. Clyde knew it wasn't genuine, but it gave him a chill all the same. She batted her eyes. "Is there some sort of problem, Clyde Brinkman?"
"Well, it's just..." Clyde looked to Gresham, who now was wearing a merciless smirk across his pimply face. The punk had thrown his arms around a metal rod that was resting on his shoulders and Clyde could see reddish underarm hair sprouting from the sleeveless section of his shirt. Nell reached over the railing and grabbed Clyde by the chin, forcing his lips into a sloppy pucker. He sputtered a bit and finally said, "No, it's just...I was just saying 'good morning'."
Nell leaned in close to Clyde, close enough so that he could smell her passion fruit lip gloss. "Well, good morning, neighbor." She quickly released his chin and smacked his forehead hard, pushing him back into his kitchen a bit. Gresham howled with laughter as Nell sauntered back to her post at the control panel.
From over a block away, Clyde could hear the first wave of thrill seekers arriving. Just like any other day, their yells and cries would attempt to dominate the the noise of the roller coaster, eventually settling for second place. A deafeningly close second place.
"Time for a test run," Nell announced. Gresham hopped into the first car of the train as Nell started the ride. As the roller coaster rose up into meet its first summit, Gresham pumped both of his middle fingers into the air and sneered at the world. Clyde could only stand and watch.
Flashing a smile at their reluctant voyeur, Nell called out, "Let us know if you ever want a ride, Clyde!" She then laughed at the rhyme as though it was the funniest thing she'd ever said or heard.
Clyde closed the window, along with the blinds. He backed up into the darkness of his kitchen, listening to the swooshing noise of the roller coaster outside. His fists clenched, he walked back to the refrigerator and peered into it again. Clyde saw that one half of the sandwich was still good and the other was still bad. However, the spoiled one, its elongated bread covered in a thin layer of blue-green mold, was now on the left-hand side.
"How about that," he said to himself, loud enough so that he could hear his voice over the noise of the roller coaster next door.
Sitting side-by-side on the top shelf, Clyde saw that both halves were still sealed in their separate zipper storage baggies, but only one half of the sandwich had been preserved. The other half, the part laying on the right-hand side of the shelf, had visibly spoiled overnight. He began to think of what possible variables could have caused the strange inconsistency when he heard Gresham and Nell take their posts at the roller coaster next door.
"Hey, Nell!" Gresham called out to the tall, surly girl across the platform. "What'd you get into last night? I heard you let Shawn Decker get to home plate." Gresham wheezed out a harsh laugh as he crossed his thin, pale arms. He was wearing another punk-looking, sleeveless shirt. Clyde had never heard of anybody named Gresham before, but knew his name from overhearing many conversations between the two college dropouts during their daily shifts at the roller coaster.
Nell lowered her sunglasses and extended a middle finger in Gresham's direction. Still holding it up, she walked over to a large, lectern-sized control panel and pressed the offending finger onto a red button. Grinding clicks and mechanical groans sounded as the roller coaster roared to life. Nell flipped her hair from one side of her head to the other. Clyde had observed that, on weekends, she liked to dye it dark red and spike it up, Mohawk-style. However, it hung in a pinkish blonde, limp cascade on this Tuesday morning, the red not entirely washed out from the previous weekend.
Clyde stared at the vulgar young people through his kitchen window and thought back to the days when the lot next to his house was nothing more than a pile of wreckage. He missed the chirping of birds and the gentle spraying sounds of lawn sprinklers the most. All of his neighbors had moved away once they heard that a single-standing roller coaster would take the place of the demolished Blockbuster Video, but Clyde had opted to stick around and see just how bad it would be before deciding if he would leave or not.
Three short months later, he had to admit that it was pretty bad. The kinetic vibrations from the coaster's first large drop tended to rattle Clyde's wine glasses and often knocked picture frames off of the walls. Also, the loop-the-loop was right next to his bedroom, so the screams of elated passengers would keep him up until the roller coaster closed for the night, usually around midnight.
Taking a deep breath, Clyde lifted the window and called out to the lone-ride carnival employees.
"Morning, gang!" he called to them in his most chipper voice. The ornery teens glared up at him. Clyde cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah. Hi. I'm not sure if you got my letter last week, but would it be possible for you to ask your guests to not litter or, you know, urinate upon my lawn?"
"I'm sorry?" Nell asked him, cupping her ear. She was standing further away from his house than Gresham, but Clyde suspected that she had heard him just fine.
"It's just...the noise is bad enough, but the litter and, you know, urine smell is just getting intolerable."
Nell locked eyes with Clyde and began to walk toward his kitchen window. One of the long roller coaster trains rushed along the rails, grinding to a halt in the platform's passenger loading station. Without stopping or even looking down, Nell skipped up onto one of the cars and glided across it, glided as if it had been there for her all along. She pushed by Gresham, passing by him without taking her eyes off of Clyde. She then stopped and rested her forearms on the platform's railing, which stood less than three feet away from Clyde's window.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you," she said to Clyde. Her voice was low and sexy. Clyde knew it wasn't genuine, but it gave him a chill all the same. She batted her eyes. "Is there some sort of problem, Clyde Brinkman?"
"Well, it's just..." Clyde looked to Gresham, who now was wearing a merciless smirk across his pimply face. The punk had thrown his arms around a metal rod that was resting on his shoulders and Clyde could see reddish underarm hair sprouting from the sleeveless section of his shirt. Nell reached over the railing and grabbed Clyde by the chin, forcing his lips into a sloppy pucker. He sputtered a bit and finally said, "No, it's just...I was just saying 'good morning'."
Nell leaned in close to Clyde, close enough so that he could smell her passion fruit lip gloss. "Well, good morning, neighbor." She quickly released his chin and smacked his forehead hard, pushing him back into his kitchen a bit. Gresham howled with laughter as Nell sauntered back to her post at the control panel.
From over a block away, Clyde could hear the first wave of thrill seekers arriving. Just like any other day, their yells and cries would attempt to dominate the the noise of the roller coaster, eventually settling for second place. A deafeningly close second place.
"Time for a test run," Nell announced. Gresham hopped into the first car of the train as Nell started the ride. As the roller coaster rose up into meet its first summit, Gresham pumped both of his middle fingers into the air and sneered at the world. Clyde could only stand and watch.
Flashing a smile at their reluctant voyeur, Nell called out, "Let us know if you ever want a ride, Clyde!" She then laughed at the rhyme as though it was the funniest thing she'd ever said or heard.
Clyde closed the window, along with the blinds. He backed up into the darkness of his kitchen, listening to the swooshing noise of the roller coaster outside. His fists clenched, he walked back to the refrigerator and peered into it again. Clyde saw that one half of the sandwich was still good and the other was still bad. However, the spoiled one, its elongated bread covered in a thin layer of blue-green mold, was now on the left-hand side.
"How about that," he said to himself, loud enough so that he could hear his voice over the noise of the roller coaster next door.
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