Chapter Two

The town felt different in the mornings; the splash of fresh new daylight is what Nate rationed did the trick. Especially on this morning. Businesses rarely lasted more than a few years in the area, many didn’t even last that, truth be told. Especially if they involved any sort of food related work, those lasted the shortest amount of time, or least? Nate was never sure which was a better word to describe it. (Not that it really mattered, ‘brief’ would work as well as any other word.) The only real places to survive any noticeable length of real time, were either a car wash or a series of storage unit buildings. John had joked, more than once, that they’d lasted so long because they were busy laundering money through them. Nate had asked who this ‘they’ were, but John said it didn’t matter. The mob, maybe. Nobody knows. The only real answer was the lack of tourist and real infrastructure. That and the little detail that Nate himself never spent much of his time checking out the new places. Whenever the thought had struck him to explore and patronize the new businesses, well, by then they had been gone so soon that it always felt like a bad idea to get invested. It was easier to just not get attached to new things in their little town.

He pulled into his usual corner spot, over by the single tree in the ‘Illiterati Bookstore’ parking lot. As usual with the early mornings, the parking lot was open, barren even, and littered with a slew of empty spaces that wouldn’t begin filling up any later than eleven, maybe noon if it was an especially slow day. After whatever time it was when people finally started showing up, the parking lot would be filled with shiny, yet oddly cheap looking newer cars. Most Nate would never have recognized more than twice. It had always been like that too. Rarely the same people came there more than a few times. And even more rare than that, would someone take his spot. Pollen made it more than undesirable to anyone else, and the beat-up car Nate drove never seemed to mind the pollen much anyways.

One of the other coworkers spotted Nate as he exited his own beaten up vehicle. They nodded to one another in a silent greeting. Good mornings, first thing in the day no less every day, had grown to be a stunted thing in their workplace. Really, for the most part of each morning everyone who worked there kept to themselves for the early sections of the day. Opting instead, to wait until the rush of people, mostly of a hipster variety, started coming in for the day. It was the civil thing to do. They only had to do this for as long as they could, every day, forever. And they all knew it and understood well enough that this was a place of business.

The store had been a known staple in the town. Its countless collections of books for was the main stay stop for readers there, for continuous years. Miles and miles of hardcovers, paperbacks, mass produced prints, local short runs, comic books, graphic novels, children’s books, to else that was to be made out of a form of compressed paper could have been found there.

That was, until two years ago. The company was bought, restructured, and changed in overall management. Now they specialized in and sold, knickknacks, figurines, backpacks, bobbles, magnets, stickers, mystery packs of an arraignment of pop culture phenomena, t-shirts, overall tiny overpriced things, and sorts of all what have you that Nate could only ration to himself as, plainly put, junk.

All of the employees had come to a consensus, and more or less all agreed that they had gone from a bookstore to a toy store almost overnight. Though, a job is a job is a job. And who would hate working in a toy store? They still had the comics section at the very least. Books were mostly still there as well too, but the change was jarring and stark for everyone involved. Even if it was accepted for what it would be.

Nate clocked in and started on his routine of checking the small mazes of aisles for any loose books that had fallen, or been misplaced by customers. It happened as much as you’d think it would. He was able to make it through the entire store without being asked how much something was. A pet peeve that he tried not to let bother him too much. The price stickers were not always in the most obvious spots on the merchandise. At least that was the most common excuse Nate had heard the most often. Patiently he’d point out, more than once a day, sticker prices were either on the tag, or the bottom of a product. If not, then the display would have it on the tag there.

The rest of the day played itself out rather smoothly. No real work based problems. No customers came in with returns, with or without a receipt. No unannounced surprise deliveries showed up and needed to be rushed off a box truck, lest the store be billed an extra hour for the delivery. Nothing obnoxious like that had happened, and Hallelujah to that. An easy day was all Nate had asked for from the universe, and the universe seemed to provide just that. And nothing more.

The phone in Nate’s pocket started vibrating when he was walking to his car. A thin layer of pollen had collected itself along the windshield and roof, a yellow blanket that the refilled wiper fluid and the hose at home would have helped him with cleaning up…

“Hello?” Nate asked into his phone. He left the car door open to vent the heat out. “Hello?”

“Hey, Nate. It’s me. Up for another trip to the bar?” His phone answered and asked in the voice of John.

Nate shrugged, not realizing that John couldn’t see him. “Sure, I can kill an hour or two. Meet you there in, about half an hour, forty minutes?”

“Perfect. I’ll be the guy that looks just like me, but with a beer in his hand. Love that guy.”

The bar wasn’t busy when Nate arrived, it rarely would be, at least for the next hour or so. The air had a fresh clean smell, like an air dispenser filled with flowers and lemons, with just an inkling of smoke smothered underneath it all. Someone was mopping the floor in the corner when John waved Nate over from their usual spot. Something was different about him. Nate couldn’t put his finger on it. But there was something and it was bothering Nate because he didn’t know what it was. But it was there all the same.

“So, how was the shop today? Fixed everyone’s problems?” Nate asked after telling the waitress that he’d have a rum and coke. He even said please, just to be safe.

“Mikey was being an idiot, again. Okay look, he had promised that he’d finish a job. Didn’t. And then complained that he thought I was going to do it. I’ve been at a jobsite across town with the boss all week. How in the hell did he think anyone would buy into that crap? Well, Mr. Joey did. He’s a dumb kid we’ve had around for a few months now. Follows Mikey around like a god damned lost kitten. Moron, he had tried to come at me with his usual nonsense this morning. ‘You should do more around here’, and, ‘All you have to do is your job, and that’s it, why is that so hard for you to understand?’ Ugh…Look, I’m just glad the boss was on my side about the whole heaping pile of nonsense. Yelled at both of those idiots that they needed to back off and just do their jobs or else they won’t have them much longer.”

“Sounds painful, John. I’m sorry you have to deal with stupid stuff like that. It must be pretty stressful. At most it sounds that way most days.”

John shrugged with indifference, “Is, what it will be. I’m just glad to be off the next few days. I needed a break. I know you do too. Mind if I go with you? To the hospital, I mean. You are going Saturday, right?”

“Yeah, and by all means,” Nate thanked the waitress, and placed a coaster under his drink. “I can’t promise it’ll be fun though. At least the receptionist is cute. You’ll like her. Little chatty but bubbly, totally your type of lady.”

John scrunched up his face, “She’s an old hag, isn’t she?”

“She, might actually be a he,” Nate admitted, with a sly smile, “I didn’t ask. I don’t think I would have asked if she had given me a chance either. Yelled something at me, something about that I needed permission from the patient to visit. Cleared that up, painfully at that, in over thirty minutes, thirty minutes that I’ll never get back. Otherwise, lovely human being. Not to my taste though. I don’t like being yelled at. Doesn’t do it for me. What? What’s with that look?”

“You’re just a liar, that’s all. You live for that crap,” John leaned back, comfortably lounging in the booth. “I’ll be able to go up and visit though, right? That won’t be a problem?”

Nate shook his head, “No. It’ll be fine. I worked all of that out last time I was there. I’m allowed to bring people up with me. No problems or anything. Just can’t bring Margo though-”

“Bastards,” John whispered into his beer.

“-I think that makes sense,” Nate continued on, ignoring the interruption, “No pets in a hospital sounds like a normal rule. I’m sure pup would hate it too. All the smells, and old people trying to steal her soul,” Nate shivered off a chill, “She’s better off braving the couch as it is. Less of a daily struggle. And it takes all of her time as it is.”

“Okay, that’s fair. Alright, alright, what’s going on? You’ve been staring at my face for a while now. What’s up? Like what you see or something?”

“John, you have a beard,” Nate pointed out, not looking away, “You didn’t have one yesterday. Did you?”

“Nate. Buddy. Bubela. I’ve had the beard for a while now,” John scratched at his face. “I can shave it if you’d like. But last time I did that, you, uh, got weird on me. Said I looked like and I quote, ‘A jackass who sells used shoes to aging adults.’ It was a very hurtful thing to hear. Accurate, I guess, and all that. But rude all the same. Made me cry my sad ass the whole way home.”

“Sounds like me,” Nate rubbed at his left eye, then the back of his neck. “I must be out of it to not have noticed, or remembered. Whatever, still weird. Maybe I’m just losing it. I’ve been noticing weird stuff like that all day today. Margo’s collar looked different this morning. What? I could have sworn it was red, but it’s orange today. And my coworker, Julie-”

“The hot one?”

“Yeah. Her car was green. It was blue yesterday. It’s always been blue, I mean.”

“Same car though?”

“I, believe so…” Nate’s eyes drifted off into the corner of the room. Realizing the answer wasn’t there, he looked back at John in front of him. And John’s larger than a few days’ worth of beard on his face.

John pulled out his phone and pretended to be typing something, muttering, “Car, is green. Hot chick, is named, J-u-l-i-e. That’s with an ‘I’ right?” He grinned and put the phone back in his pocket. “Alright”, John said with a casual tone when he didn’t get the laugh that he had wanted, “Go on. Please. I’ll be good.”

Nate thinking, “Just, all the small things seemed off. Kind of all different today. That’s all. I just feel like, I don’t know. I’m just losing my mind a little is all it probably is. Or that I’m just walking around asleep lately, not noticing anything. If I didn’t know much better, I’d swear the world felt like it was shrinking down and around me,” Nate sipped gingerly at his rum and coke. They had used Pepsi, just how he liked it. This place knew him so well, even if it was an accident by the newer bartender. “You know what? Maybe I’m just being stupid and stressing myself out.”

“Nate,” John leaned forward, “I don’t think it’s stupid at all. And I suspect you aren’t an idiot. You have a lot going on,. That’s all it is. Your aunt in the hospital. Everything has to feel, let alone seem different. Because it is different. It’d be weird if you felt the same was as you always did. Like if it was just any other plain old day. You’d be a psychopath if you did that, felt that way I mean. Now! Cut yourself some slack here. And who knows. With things being different today, you might end up wake up tomorrow, and finding out, maybe, that I’m a hot chick or something? That’d be fun!”

Nate snorted into his glass, spilling rum up his nose and chin. John reached over the table and handed Nate some napkins. “Jesus. That may actually ruin my day.”

“How come? I’d make a great hot chick. Flash some guy behind the counter to get free things. No speeding tickets. Never pay for a first date, or a second date, that’s gotta kick all kinds of ass! No doubt about it.”

“But the fixing things, and the calluses. You wouldn’t be able to walk alone at night. Let alone pee outside anymore,” Nate argued. Drying his face, and then the table as he talked.

John thought about it, “I do like peeing outside. Especially when no one is looking…”

“Kiss that goodbye. And say hello to no one listening to you.”

“No…Dear god…What have I done? These are not my beautiful, rough, work stained hands from all day in construction. This is not my beautiful lack of credit card debt. Dear mother of God, what have I done?” John held his head in his hands and shuddered pathetically so.

Nate chuckled, and shook his head solemnly, “Just another pretty statistic. Damn shame too. Could have been a doctor or something. Instead just another cheerleader that peaked in high school.” They both laughed.

Letting their chatter drift off and into oblivion, they started watching one of the two television sets hanging in the room. A hockey game was on one and a golf game going on the other. The hockey game held their attention more so than the endless miles of green and grey of the other. Neither of them knew the teams, let alone any hockey teams. But given the alternative, hockey was far more interesting to watch than golf. At least it was a team sport where they all banded together and had what looked like a mosh pit, right there on the ice. Imagine, Nate imagined, that golf had such events that regularly occurred. That would change the game entirely.

The regular crowd of faces shuffled in over time, the rest of the evening seeming to drift out of the doors with each new person who arrived. They were just letting the time inside the room leave, bit by bit into the night. About midway through the hockey game, at least they thought it was the midpoint, Nate and John left their booth to play pool. For a few rounds, both had won and lost evenly, until the tie breaker went to John.

Nate tried bringing up some more of the other things that had changed. The trees by work, the names of the three car washes he hadn’t recognized, hell, his normal order was a different number at the fast food chain restaurant. Each time he did though, try to tell John, John didn’t seem to be listening to him. That, or he just told him, to both stuff it and or to relax.

“Don’t stress about the little things,” he’d explained. “There would always be more in this life to worry about, let alone notice later. Plus, it was all probably in your head from being so stressed and uptight.”

The end of the night for Nate arrived when John saw the group of girls from the previous night. Ashley. Nate tried to remember the name; John had mentioned it in the parking lot yesterday, and she made John smile more brightly than he had seen him smile in a long time. Remembering her name seemed like a good place to start. He was always awful with names. Faces were far easier to recall. Not that many of them looked alike anyways. Names however, he knew six John’s in his life. And he suspected he’d meet at least that many more in the future.

John introduced Nate to the girls, right before Nate left for the night. It was getting late and he needed to check on the pup was the excuse he gave them before making a hasty retreat. Honestly, at that point in the night he was just ready to go. The day felt longer and more distorted than he needed it to be, and he needed it to end.

After everyone waved goodbye to him, Nate went straight home. Margo was waiting in the blinds for him again, as she always did when he came home late. He loved seeing that golden smile peeking out at him. He was grateful she didn’t bark her head off at him like she used to. Though that was quite some time ago. And she was much smaller then.

“I should leave those open, shouldn’t I?” He asked her, pointing to the blinds. “That way you don’t mess them up every day.”

She didn’t answer him, instead opting to smile her dumb doggy smile. Margo went about wagging her tail at everything he said and barked at the back door expectantly. Nate checked her collar briefly when she came back inside a few minutes later. It used to be thinner, he remembered it that way, and tannish red, not orange, and more than certainly not as lean as it was now. Nate knew that he hadn’t changing it. He would have remembered that, for all of the obvious reasons.

“Wild…” John may have been right that he needed to let small stuff like this go. Life was too long and he needed to just relax a little. That’s all he probably needed.

Nate got ready for bed and put on something from the history channel. He didn’t know if he had seen the show, or episode before. Not that it mattered much. He’d be asleep soon enough. Lulling himself off to sleep on the sounds of aliens building the world up around him. Or so the ancient alien theorist would have him believe.

Chapter Two

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