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 Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 6:16 pm
It was the last legs of Reed's shift, now it was just waiting for his co-worker to show up. He looked forward to a night's sleep when he say Jon staggering down from the steps. It was a wonder no one died from coming down those treacherous stairs, but thankfully no one had in the history of the building being open.
He wondered if he should just call it a night and drive the poor man home himself. Would that seem tacky? Oh, hell yes, it would but did he care? Oh, hell no... Even so.
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Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 7:19 pm
Jon rediscovered his footing when he finally stepped from the stairs, tail held high in order to keep his balance. Clutching his coat over one arm made him lopsided, so he pulled it back on again, never mind the bunching at his elbows. He had come down the steps for a reason, he concluded, and it wasn't until he spotted Reed that he half remembered what it was. He lifted his hand in greeting.
"Leaving so soon?" he asked around a mild smirk. He stared across the floor, hands buried in his coat pockets; he lost his attention to the lights.
"So, between here and there," he started slowly, vaguely when he caught sight of Reed again. "Where do you think the best place to be is right about now?"
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Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 7:46 pm
Reed wanted to say "My bed, doi!" but he instead took his car keys from out of his pants pocket and sifted through his mass of keys.
"Do you need a ride home?" Reed said, waving good-bye to Wade. "I'm on my way out, sir. Or we can call you a taxi."
He pulled out his cellphone and turned it back on, it took forever to power on. The wonders of modern technology and the damn thing still took forever to boot up and find his voice mails. Reed had a mass of text messages, his eyes went wide for a second.
"Who the hell sent me all these...? Oh," Reed looked surprised. "Who gave my brothers this number? The bastards..."
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Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 8:12 pm
Jon could feel his own cellphone buried in his pocket, but he knew there was nothing waiting for him in his inbox, voice or otherwise. Most of his contacts were work related and the few that weren't were acquaintances. He hummed an amused note at Reed's discontent, adopted a look of pity. Ha ha, poor thing, he has family. What a shame. He couldn't tell whether the voice in his head was sarcastic or disappointed.
"I do need a ride," he said, rubbing his eye with the pad of his forefinger. "But home is three hours away and my apartment is the last place I want to be. What else you got?"
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Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 9:56 pm
Reed laughed, motioning Jon to follow him to his miserable two-door car. It was a car that might as well have been a tired looking old mare. Primer spots were its only adornment, dings were only its best features. He had an old friend and mechanic weld a crazy little pony jumping through a flaming hoop to the front. Another friend thought it'd be a riot if they took some enamel and painted the pony a garish shade of purple.
He didn't bother with a car alarm.... or locking it... he dreamed of someone stealing it on some days, because the AC had been out on the damn thing since the day he bought it off of someone's front yard. On the twice glued on rear view mirror there was several strings of Mardi Gras beads and a headless hula girl stood taped to the dashboard. He wasn't sure at what day it was that her head popped off. Reed had meant to sculpt her a new one with some clay... on his off day. Whenever that was.
Reed opened the passenger side door and started flinging random objects off of it and into the backseat.
"Excuse the squalor, Jon, I'm a filthy bachelor," Reed laughed. "She's not the prettiest pony in the paddock, that's for damn sure."
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Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 10:48 pm
He hadn't planned on saying anything - at least, what rationality he had left had told him to keep his lips pressed shut. But who was he trying to kid? He was drunk as a skunk and hopping into a car with a complete stranger - two things that were probably making his mother turn in her grave. If she were dead. Well, she was halfway there.
Jon peered into the window of the little piece of rust, that stupid smirk of his pulling his lips into a thin line.
"You sure this thing runs? Looks like it should have a weight limit," he said. He straightened and rubbed his jaw, laughing. "I might be safer walking home...."
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Posted: Sat May 16, 2009 9:06 pm
Reed laughed, and looked to Jon from over his shoulder impishly. "Get in, you drunk, you don't know what you're talking about. She can do the job just fine, thank you," Reed reassured him. "Where's your solid gold limousine waiting to pick you up anyway, mister public relations?"
He walked around to get into the driver's side, sliding in he took a cocktail napkin out of his pocket and spit into it to clean off the rear view. He could never figure out how it got so dusty every night. Reed suspected it was from leaving the windows rolled down halfway so he wouldn't suffocate from the lack of cooling as he drove to his apartment.
"Three hours? Good god, Jon, you can't be serious can you?" he said in conversation, back tracking two steps back.
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Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 5:16 pm
"It turned back into a pumpkin, I'm afraid. At least I still have my diamond encrusted bike back home, right?" he said as he dropped into the passenger seat, pulling the door shut.
Jon waited for the pieces of the world to fall back into place again now that he was sitting down, and shut his eyes to wait. He cracked one open when Reed's voice wheedled its way into his conscious and he turned his head with a c**k of his ear. Three hours for what? Oh! Right, home. A quick smile twitched across his mouth.
"Serious as a heart attack. I walked all the way here to get a drink," he teased, resting his elbow against the half-opened window. Funny how he could swear he remembered his way out of Augustine, but not quite how to navigate a few blocks down to his new apartment. Convenient.
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Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 8:41 pm
"So you'd rather be anywhere but where you were," Reed mused, starting up the car.
The poor beast gave a raspy kind of wheeze before she started up again. She almost sounded remorseful as though to say "Dear god, why have you summoned me?" With that he backed out of the parking lot amidst the other more modest and luxurious cars. At least you'd never lose his car in a parking lot, the little foam ball with the sombrero on his antenna would not win him any prizes for style.
"Sit back, then, we've got to feed the beast," Reed went on. "I didn't gas her up this morning and so we're going to take a trip to the gas station in the faux cultural district of Augustine. They call a strip of local artists cultural, but artists are like this Blaine Whatshisnut of yours. Even their bad art earns them fame because people look at those splatters of half-assed attempts at style and say 'Oh, look, isn't it cutting edge!? I'll pay thousands for it!' These rich people wouldn't know style if it mugged them in broad daylight."
He gave a quick glance to Jon before he turned into the street in front of the bar and made his way towards the Augustine Cultural District, called the ACD by the working class locals but not as a term of endearment. The ACD was just as Reed described, the walkways were picturesque and many artists owned their own galleries and took on "apprentices", poor bastards who were the real starving artist who occasionally were allowed a canvas or sculpture or two within the main artist's gallery and sold their work at considerably cheaper prices.
He pitied them, too, though not that much. Even the starving artist got paid more per punch than he did.
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Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 9:54 pm
"And my tour guide for the evening is one Mr. Reed--... Reed the bartender," Jon narrated, staring out of the window. The wane lights of the night- early morning?- flickered by the window at breakneck speed (according to Jon's perspective), and he turned his gaze away in order to keep his stomach from giving out on him. That was the last thing he needed. Though, really, in the mess of Reed's car, would another mess be noticed? The feline shared a private laugh with himself.
"I don't know, I've seen myself in an ink blot before," he said. He spoke slowly, like he were explaining something important, intense... the multiple worlds theory! "I've seen scribble in the corner of a canvas go for over 100k once myself. It was the most artistic scribble known to man, let me tell you."
He made a noise in the back of his throat, not quite a chuckle, not quite a hum. He twisted in his seat, burrowing his fingers into his hair as he rested his head against his palm.
"I think us rich people - you think I qualify as one? huh - get bored with all the money we have. Figure swimming through it in our pools isn't enough. Decide to set a few trends by buying shitty art and calling it a work of genius. Or, you know, chucking Vardaman's stuff on the top of the best seller list. Swear to God, I've read better things on public restrooms' walls." He paused, "Way more detailed too."
Jon cut his eyes at Reed with a ghost of a half-grin, "I'll see if I can put a word in to the Rich Peoples Association to see if I can fix this ACD of yours."
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Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 11:10 am
Reed rolled into the gas station, putting on the brake by winning at arm wrestling with the beast, and turned her off.
"The only way you can fix it," Reed noted, "is to burn the b***h to the ground and fiddle over it, I'm afraid."
He pulled out his wallet, a rather fetching looking thing that looked better suited for a cowboy. It was a western design in red and black leather, a little silver star was riveted on. Taking out his gas station card, he wandered out to give the beast something to eat. But first... he wandered into the gas station to pick up some junk food for dinner and breakfast. Such was the life of a bachelor who had no time (or funds) for proper groceries. It was just as well, his tiny refrigerator had stopped working two months ago.
He came back and threw a nondescript "Thank you for shopping!" paper bag into the back seat of his car before he went to pump gas. All the while he whistled cheerily.
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Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 12:43 pm
"I can play the fiddle," Jon mentioned off-hand.
When was the last time he had filled a car up at the pump? He had his own car, yeah, that he drove, but he was more used to catching a cab, the train, or hopping into someone else's car to get from point A to point B. There had been no need for his car back in the Old Country (here he sighed melodramatically). The rank smell of the gasoline stung Jon's nose enough for him to wrinkle it and press it against his arm. He wallowed in his petrol-scented misery for as long as he could stand before he shoved the car door open and got out.
"Water," he said without looking over his shoulder as he walked into the convenience store. It never occurred to him that Reed could very well just drive off without him.
After getting lost somewhere between the candy and peanut aisle in his quest for water, he ambled out of the store successful.
"You ever wonder why they sell cigarettes at a gas station? Lighters too." He lifted the excess items that had garnered his interest; he had a bagful of miscellaneous things that he poked through like a child with a prize bag at a birthday party.
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Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 1:24 pm
"What's there to think about?" Reed shrugged, waiting for Jon to get in. "It's the other legal vice there is, but even that's getting expensive," Jon sighed, twisting on the gas cap.
It was the third gas cap the beast ever had, she had lost her first two from someone siphoning the gas to steal it and letting the cap get lost. The second one got lost when Reed forgot to screw it on and left it on top of the hood, only to find (to his dismay and ten miles later) that it'd never be seen again. Thankfully, his friend the mechanic had an ample supply of gas caps and only charged him three bucks a pop.
"Are you coming home with me? Because I'm not far from my place, but there's at least two mediocre hotels that I've been in and know of."
He was being honest at this point, he had a hostage otherwise. Reed's libido might have been like that of a bonobo chimp, but he still had what looked to be a working mind and a sense of fair play. He could have as easily dragged him home drunk and had the time of his life either getting into a serious fist fight and a black eye for work tomorrow or he could have the time of his life that could only require a shower and brushing his teeth by morning. Either one seemed like a decent distraction.
"Have you ever been stoned?" Reed laughed again, pushing the lock of black hair from his eyes. He got in and started up the car again. "Nah, you're rich, you probably got coked up before you got stoned."
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Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 3:18 pm
“It’s like asking for an explosion, though.” Jon continued to babble strings of nonsensical gibberish even as he fell back into his seat. He clicked a flame to life at the end of the cheap plastic lighter in his hand, danced his fingers through it. Boredom set in a second later and he dropped the lighter into his lap, leaned his head back.
“You really make those hotels sound like a s**t ton of fun. Sounds like a slumber party tonight, though,” he said with mild-mannered amusement. Jon could barely see past the next thirty seconds let alone the possibilities one night with a complete stranger could hold. One Night with a Complete Stranger… it sounded like the title of one of Vardaman’s novels minus the extra c**k. Jon started laughing again, now to the point of tears.
“Who says I’m not completely and totally straight edge?” he managed when he stopped laughing at himself. “Just because I probably couldn’t break anything below a fifty doesn’t mean I got bored like all the other rich kids and snorted coke for fun.”
He was grinning, though, a wide, uncharacteristic grin as he stretched his legs out, “Why?”
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Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 3:39 pm
Well, it wouldn't be the first time he arrived at work with a black eye. On those weeks, the boss made him run inventory and not show up at the bar. That man had the patience of a mountain, he understood his troop of motley kids off the street were either lost, on their way to something else, or seriously had nowhere else to go.
Reed was among the ones he knew would always get into a scrape from time to time but it wouldn't stop them from getting back up again. It was a miracle, the boss thought, that Reed arrived to work just as amiable and personable as anyone could be even on those days when people threatened to kick him out of his apartment or that one time when he had to get stitches over his eye. The boss just called them "battle scars" and said the ladies would love it. Reed never mentioned that he'd hope some men would, too.
"I tried to be fair," Reed shrugged, turning out of the gas station and into the street. "My place may not be what you're used to, is all."
He pulled out ballpoint pen from the car's console and punched the power on the radio, the buttons having popped off that one time a friend from the back seat kicked two of them off. With the knobs to either side, the display in the center, and the buttons below it had the appearance of a hockey player.
The radio played Money for Nothing.... fitting.
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