Author: Servo Blue
AUTHOR'S NOTE: ============= I don't think I have one this time.
--Servo Blue
DISCLAIMER: ========== The Author claims no fault for the appearance of Iowa.
The Out-Crowd ===========
Part 16: All In A Day
There he was. Mr. "I Don't Like People", Fedora himself, playing ragtime on the piano on the stage in the auditorium. Weird, huh? Then again, what HASN'T been weird lately? This is all like one crazy dream recently.
Anyway, the three of us, Wally, Shelby and myself, just stood in the doorway and listened. It was actually pretty fast, and his arms were sliding across the keys, this way and that. But then again, instead of enjoying the secret performance, it was bugging me that I was watching a presumable jerk like Fedora doing something that obviously took a lot of work and determination, because as a person he was just a cold nothing. Well, an angry cold nothing.
"C'mon," I said to Wally and Shelby, but still watching Fedora go. "Let's get outta here."
Without a word, we backed out of the doorway and shut the door as quietly as possible.
We made our way through the parking lot and started our venture home. At first, nobody was talking, but about a block away from the school, Shelby started it up.
"My grandpa said that if I get directions to the Battleground, he can have my derby car brought over," he said.
"Hey, as long as it's easily accessible, I can use my uncle's pick-up and tow it over myself," said Wally. "It'd be easier that way; less trouble with directions and all."
"Really?" asked Shelby, almost as if he honestly didn't believe Wally. "That'd be pretty sweet, boss."
"Speaking of which," said Wally, learing at me, when do we begin the de-construction on your Edsel?" I'd forgotten about that entirely.
"Uh...I don't know," I said plainly. "When's good for you?"
"How about Friday, right after school?"
"Sounds like a pretty good deal to me, Wally," I said, as we approached a corner. Wally looked around, then said his goodbyes and trodded off on the adjecent street. Shelby and I ventured off to our own home, discussing the many things one must tear off of a vehicle, and the fact that my friends were not completely insane, as the car that they purchased for me was only a few hundred dollars due to a body that had been reduced to near solid rust from sitting in a field for the past twelve years, at least. How it still ran was a mystery to all who'd seen it.
When we got to our house, we dropped our stuff on the floor beside the door and ran upstairs to change our clothes. When we came down, we flopped onto the couch in the living room but didn't turn on the T.V. Actually, we just sat there and stared at each other.
"You do know that about half our class knows Jeremy's gay, right?" he asked me. Uh-huh. Interesting way to start a conversation, eh?
"Well, no, I didn't know that. Why do you ask?"
"I just thought I'd let you know, so that when people start askin' why you're always hangin' around with him, you know what they're thinkin', automatically."
"But I don't hang out with him all the time," I protested, though I could feel myself fighting off a smile.
"Maybe not yet, but once you get your mystery car outta the garage and onto the street, I'm willin' to bet you will be," he said, tilting his head to the said and returning the smile.
"Yeah, well..." I started, searching for something to say, "Let 'em talk."
"That's the spirit!" said Shelby, swinging a fist through the air and cheering me on in mock victory. I just rolled my eyes and got up to answer the knock at the front door. I opened the door, and Jeremy slammed up against me, grabbed my shirt at the shoulders, and spun us both around in such a fashion that in the midst of our spin, the door was shut and he was holding me up against it, and then, not wasting a second, he kissed me. I mean, he KISSED me! The boy was damn happy about something. When he finally broke his attack on my tongue, due to Shelby clearing his throat, he first turned to Shelby and said "Sorry," with a big grin, not to mention a little out of breath, and then turned to me and released my shirt.
"What was that?" I asked, catching my own breath as well.
"I just got off the phone and ran over here as fast as I could," he panted. "He's comin' home--my Dad's comin' home!"
Juke hung upside-down from the chin-up bar that was mounted to the wall in his bedroom. He had his knees wrapped around it and was doing a set of "sit-ups", if you can really call them that. He'd been working out for quite some time; at this point, he was only wearing a pair of mint green shorts, and he was drenched with sweat. He finished the last of his sit-ups, grabbed the bar with his hands, and pushed off backwards with his legs, in sort of a flipping motion, landing on his feet, though he was still holding the bar.
Releasing his grip, he walked over to the queen size bed that was placed with the headboard directly under the small basement window. He stood up on his bed, kicking the pillows out of the way, and looked up at the 6 o'clock sky, tainted pink from the sunset.
He watched as his father's 2000 Cherokee pulled into the asphalt driveway. Out of it came a man in a dark suit, briefcase in hand, who looked like any other tired office worker. But he wasn't. Juke knew this because he lived with him, or what was left of him. As the figure disappeared up the walk to the front door, vanishing as he passed the small window, the tantilizing aroma of his mom's cooking wafted its way around his nose. Juke closed his eyes, savoring the smell of a well-cooked ham, then opened them.
He saw the truck. Well, no; he saw two bright headlights, two large reflective squares above them, and a shimmering box of criss-crossing lines between the lights. The sudden fear was heart-stopping, and he could feel his dad's hand against his chest, bracing him back against the seat, while his other hand spun the wheel frantically, trying to out-maneuver the on-coming rig. The wasn't helping, and the gaurd rails on both sides of the bridge weren't about to allow for the car to simply drive off the road and avoid conflict. There was a loud burst, undoubtedly the front tire of the semi, and within seconds, the giant truck slammed into the front of the car, taking through the gaurd rail that just moments ago disallowed any form of passage. Then the dashboard snapped, and a nanosecond later, he was bleeding. The car was run not only off the road, but several yards away, into the swarm of trees. He looked to his left. The driver door was gone, his father tossed to the street, face-down, immobile. He tried to get out, reach him, but the hood of the car was shoved in to the point that even if his hand could've reached the buckle, he couldn't have gotten out for the crumpled hood covering his lap and just inches from severing his torso.
"Hey!" she yelled, snapping his attention to the here and now. He turned to see his sister of twelve years standing in his doorway. He quickly looked out the window to the black, starlit sky, but then back to her.
"Supper's ready, Juke," she said. "We called you, like, a million times. You gotta learn to listen," and with that, she ran up the stairs.
Juke sighed, grabbed a shirt, and left his room, crossing the basement to the laundry room, which also held a sink and a shower. He rinsed himself off, opting to take a shower after he ate. He dried off and put on his shirt, and started to leave, pausing in the doorway of the laundry room, leaning against it, his thouhgts returning briefly to the normal-looking guy in the dark suit. He was his father, yes, but not his dad. He lost his dad when he lost his voice.
Kate was laying on her bed, feet in the air and chin resting on her hands. She was reading some stupid teeny bopper magazine--yes, I said "teeny bopper"--and the hackneyed cliche of an article she was reading was on how all of the sexy boys are always the stupid boys. If I was there, I'd a smacked her.
Anyway, halfway into her article, the phone rang. She looked up at the translucently shelled telephone on the desk three feet from the bed. She grumbled at the idea of having to reach the phone, but then tried to do so without moving her body. With arm outstretched, she tried to grab the ringing appliance, but fell short about six inches, as she doesn't quite have a six-foot armspan. With an odd motion, she shook her body forward enough to grab the receiver, but the bed shook, too, and she didn't regain her former stability. The a thud, a clang, and an "Ugh", Kate and her phone hit the floor, receiver landing by her head.
"Ow," she mumbled, lifting up the front of her body to grab the receiver once more.
"Hello? Kate, are ya there? You O.K., what was that?" came the hyper voice on the phone. Ignoring the urgency, she responded.
"Yeah, I'm here. What's up?" she asked.
"What happened? I heard a crash."
"Yeah, I fell off the bed. So did the phone," she said.
"The phone was on the bed?" came the bewildered voice. Kate sighed.
"What do you want, Jeremy?"
Now see, this was odd. Jeremy very seldom calls girls, and Kate is no exception. He's content just to hang out with her. In fact, knowing Jeremy, had it not been so late, he most likely would've run to her house, too.
"Well, um, I kinda have a question," he said, sounding unsure of himself.
"And that would be?"
"Um, have you seen Micheal lately?" he asked. "He seems kinda...I dunno.... Giddy."
"Micheal?" she asked, astonishment in her voice. "Giddy?"
"Yeah, and he gets giddier every day. He keeps talkin' about Wally said we get to have a zombie, or something insanely stupid like that. But he goes on at a hundred miles an hour, and I can't get rhyme nor reason out of him, and I figured that if you tried, you could probably get him to make sense."
"What?!" she yelped. "What are you talking about?!"
"I don't know!" he exclaimed. "The boy has flipped his knickers! Don't act like I know what he's talking about, that's why I'm talking about it to you!"
"Wha--uh, O.K., fine. I'll talk to him. I'll regret it...but I'll talk to him."
"Thanks, baby."
"Shut-up."
And with Jeremy giggling, they hung up.
Zimran was sweeping up between the tables and chairs. Closing time again, indicated by the big neon sign in the parking lot having been turned off. He stood for a moment, both hands resting on the top of the broom handle, as he stared out the big glass window before him into the dark street.
Admittedly, he had a very distinct name, but with a reason that was decent, at least. Since forever in his family, everyone has had a biblical name; his father, David, and his uncle, Joseph. Zimran was just next on the list when he was born. Not many people knew his name, though. In fact, not many people knew much about him at all.
Now don't start feeling bad for him; he made it this way. In fact, he honestly thought that that was how it was supposed to be, that he was meant to be truly alone. And he didn't care. His parents were taken years ago, his last grandparent three weeks later. His aunt left Uncle Joe when Zimran came to live with them. He didn't know anybody in California and he didn't really care to. Well, except for Joe, but he's family, he doesn't count. After his Aunt Cloe left, not even a whole two weeks after Zimran's arrival, the whole thing started. Zimran shut down completely, omitting the rest of the human race. His uncle was very worried, but nothing he did ever seemed to help. Worse, it never seemed to hurt, either. There was no right or wrong way to deal with Zimran, because he'd numbed himself entirely to the world, the whole friggin' planet Earth. In his mind, if he cared for anybody, that person would be taken away. He'd had that happen too much, too fast. How to stop it? Stop caring. Caring equals loss. Loss equals pain.
"Hey, Z-man," came his uncle's voice from across the diner. "Howzabout chu finish up-a the sweepin an' gota sleep, eh?"
Zimran turned and gave his uncle a half smile.
"O.K., Uncle Joe," he said. "I'll be done in a few minutes."
"Thasa my boy," said Joe, as he turned and walked up the stairs, hidden behind a door marked 'employees only'.
Turning back to the window, Zimran finished up the sweeping then put the chairs up on their respective tables and turned out the lights. With a sigh and a heavy heart, though only by ignorant choice, Zimran started up the stairs and closed the door behind him.
Vlad laid on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. This was the 14th week. It was bad enough being an exchange student, because nobody would talk to you, but with the rumors around that he was a crackhead,--and yes, he was with the slang of America by this time--nobody would even come near him. Talk about feeling like a foreigner. How ironic that insomnia should make his reputation so poor that his life become a living nightmare. It almost made him laugh. Almost.
He also didn't like the name people used on him, but he could appreciate how he got it. Fourteen weeks, on an average of 3 hours of sleep a night, if he got to sleep, had him looking more than dead. Pale, dark around the eyes. And no clue as to what caused it. It was no wonder that nobody wanted to be around him the whole first nine weeks.
But then, just a few days ago, an odd thing happened. Well, odd compared to recent routines. A kid came over and talked to him at lunch. Voluntarily. Of his own accord. Weird. His name was Micheal, and he had a nice accent, and a very pretty face. But that wasn't the issue. The issue was that Micheal had asked him to be friends. He said he knew what it was to be the one who talks different, who looks different. The one who eveyrone sees as an outsider. He said that he knew a few people who were nothing BUT outsiders that nobody wanted, but they'd found great people in each other. The offer sounded a little hokey, but hey, friends are friends. He'd agreed to meet them, this weekend. They'd all go to a movie and afterwards get a meal somewhere, get to know eachother. After that, if Vlad didn't like 'em, he could just say so, no hard feelings, and never have to bother with them again.
Sounds like quite a gang, too.
'Well, that's something we'll figure out this weekend,' he thought. 'Right now, I've got some sleeping to not do.' And with that thought in mind, he stood up and walked to his window, gazing at the midnight setting of a small California neighborhood street.
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....To Be Continued.... Yeah, this took a while, too. I'm sorry. Any Comments or Criticism go to me at servo_blue@usa.com or Inverse@mindless.com Whatever floats your boat.