Chapter 12: something needs to happen

     

      Lindsey sits in the parking lot on a cement block. The Tower doors are directly behind her, reflecting her calm, seated form. Unhurt yet tired, she sits defeated, mind blank as the concrete of the parking lot. The wind is cold but the sun is not. When the wind stops blowing, it is almost hot.

      A black sedan pulls up. It has deep cuts in it-- thin cuts, done either by knife or keys. The front looks as though someone in some mood smashed the hood, lights, and driver's side window with a baseball bat. The only thing the car has going for it is the color - highly polished black. Lindsey sees herself in the doorway as it pulls up.

      "You needed a ride, Lindsey?" the man shouts.

      "Thanks so much, Carmelo," Lindsey says, reaching in through the window to unlock the door.

      Lindsey sits down on a desert-dry, creased leather seat the gray color of an airplane seat.

      "Are you ok?" Carmelo asks as he reverses out of the parking lot.

      "Yea."

      "You said they were chasing you? Who was chasing you, Lindsey?"

      "There are a million people who would chase me. I swear I'm going to kill Tanya. Murder her." Lindsey kicks the dashboard.

      "Who's Tanya. We haven't talked in a while. I don't know who any of those people are."

      "I just met her a week or so ago, so you wouldn't know who she is. She was going to give me forty grand for a subatomic biomech device." She kicks the dashboard again.

      "Ok, I get it that you are upset over something. Stop kicking the dashboard."

      "Shut up, asshole."

      "Do you want to walk back? Oh, and subatomic devices are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. So you were getting ripped off anyway. I'm not sure what a biomech device does, but that probably added to the price tag."

      "It is a mind-controlled subatomic device. In either case, Tanya got what she wanted."

      "She and her henchmen just stole it from you..." Someone in the next lane honks at them.

      "...Yes," she says. "The light is green, Carmelo."

      Carmelo turns the college station up. It is some kind of folksy punk group. Odd sounding. Guitar, drums, and a harmonica.

      "Feel like having lunch? I'm in the mood for liver sausage and humus," he says.

      "Ew, I didn't realize that liver and humus actually had a mood."

      Lindsey laughs a bit at her own joke then vacantly stares out the window. It is almost hot inside the car. The punks with the harmonica shout something. Something about political or social change, who knows.

      "It sucks your friend betrayed you like that," he says.

      "Friend, what friend? Tanya wasn't my friend." She says to the driver in the other lane, who eats a sandwich --which may or may not have included liver sausage and/or humus.

      "Does anyone have any friends? I mean, do you honestly know anyone with one or two really trustworthy, loyal friends?"

      He pulls up to the dorms. Lindsey suddenly returns back to reality.

      "I can't go back."

      "Why not?"

      "The device was stolen from the AP bio-mechanics class. I figured expulsion would be fine if I had forty grand."

      "You moron, you can't possibly give up schooling for forty grand. You can't even buy a good car for that much!"

      "Forty grand is enough to do something else. I could go to art school or something. I hate doing whatever it is I'm doing. I can't stand school, this school. Forty grand isn't much, but at least I can do what I want without the approval of my parents."

      "Moron. You will be put in jail. Are you on surveillance?"

      "Not in the science wing. I have them set so that they overwrite the footage every ten seconds."

      "Let's hope security was not looking at you for those ten seconds. So where should I drive you?"

      "I don't know," Lindsey says, staring out the window. It does not look like she has any intention of moving.

      "I see why you called me. The only person you can think of who is both lonely and desperate and has his own apartment," he says, not angrily.

      "No, that's not why," she replies.

      "Oh, it's ok. I wouldn't mind some company. If you plan on staying here for more than a month, you need to get a job (a legal job). Until then, at least pay for some groceries. You know?"

      "Oh, don't sound so desperate and pathetic. You never used to be all sensitive and shit."

      "Love, my fugitive friend," Carmelo smiles and reverses, almost into another car.

      "I told you dating would be the death of you." Lindsey shakes her head.

      "I'm not dating though. I haven't dated since we broke up."

      "Well maybe you should, just to get your mind off her. Someone, anyone, just so that you know that there are other people out there besides her."

      "Like," he turns his head to her "you?"

      "Um..."

      "I was kidding. I don't know, Lindsey. There is no one that I want. To be honest, I'm not even looking. I am confident that the girl for me will just fall into my lap one day."

      Lindsey holds her breath as he merges on the highway.

      "Yea right. No one in the world will fall into your lap, let alone the right person."

      "Well, it's happened once before."