tell me what I want to say
save me for another day
break me its the game you play
hate me as I turn away
A junkie saw Carby the night Eve left her keys in the ignition. That was the worst mistake. The second worst mistake, was looping the $100 chain of galvanized steel through the plastic handle in the back, instead of through the tire like she should have been. Eve had started locking the chain that way because it was less embarrassing (and less scary) when she tried to pull away before remembering to unlock the chain.
Had the chain been through the wheel, it would have been impossible (or at least nearly impossible) for the junkie to wheel the bike away, because the chain would have prevented the rear wheel from turning. In fact, the junkie would have been arrested five blocks away, and the bike would have been impounded and then returned by an average looking cop that didn't miss the opportunity to hit on Eve.
,
The junkie glanced around, and then walked over to the bike. It was chained to a young tree, a tree young enough that he figured he could bend it. That process turned out to be no where as easy as he'd thought; he was forced to snap off each branch one by one. That alone took way to long, and he was a little surprised that no one walked down the street the entire time. Had he been sober, he would have know that it was 4:23 in the morning when he snapped or bent the last branch of the tree, and the deserted street would have made a lot more sense. The tree had a fork in it. Both trunks were too thick to break, but they would bend, so the junkie took off his belt and tied it around them, pulling them together. The next task was to bend the tree over next to the bike so he could slip the chain off. During his first attempt his pants fell to his ankles, and he lost grip on the chain and the tree. The tree snapped up, whipping him in the face and knocking over Carby.
Inside, Eve was awake. This was unusual for her, but she was unable to sleep. Her life had gotten way off track, and (besides the baby, which she never allowed herself to thing about) her greatest regret was not finishing college. She missed the friends she had made, and most importantly, the opportunities lost. Even community college was expensive, though, so she was up late looking and prices and trying to figure out a way to make it work. If the started taking classes again, she would get a break from paying off the school loans from her last attempt, but it was still looking like she'd need a third job. If she took a third job, she wouldn't have time for classes.
Outside, the junkie tried a second time. This time, he shifted the bike to make it easier, and this time, he got the chain off. The junkie pulled his pants up and re-belted them, started Carby, and drove off.
Eve heard a motorcycle engine start and walked to the window. Her apprehension was firmed when she saw some kind in a gray sweatshirt and ripped jeans riding off with her bike. She screamed. Then she dialed 911. Then she called Dave.
Many blocks away, a college freshman named Jim watched the last bus pull away. This was not good. He was nearly out of cash--definitely not enough to get a hotel. He couldn't use his credit card, because his mother examined the receipts closely to see what he was up to. He couldn't call anyone, because he had earlier used up the remaining battery of his cell phone with Melissa, making this the longest he had ever gotten out of talking to her aside from sleepping. In fact there would be hell to pay when his mother looked at his cell phone bill and saw how much he was calling Melissa. Jim had wanted to start paying for his own cell phone but mother would not let him. She liked knowing who he was calling and Jim knew he couldn't actually afford it anyway.
Melissa was going to freak out when she walked down to the bus station in 6 hours. Jim was going to probably spend the night huddled in one of the metal chairs in the bus station, and had no way to tell her. He didn't want to think about that. The thought of Melissa being angry at him made his insides churn and his mouth dry.
Jim started pacing, trying to think of a way out of this mess. He almost bumped into a slightly older kid with tattered jeans and a faded sweatshirt. The kid stopped him and asked if he wanted to buy a motorcycle. Jim was new to city life, and neither the starting point nor destination of his journey was in this one. Strangers made him nervous. Jim made it best attempt to look unscared and said no. Then the guy said three hundred dollars. Before Jim could respond the guy changed it to one hundred. Jim looked at the bike. He didn't have a great understanding of motorcycle prices, but he knew $100 was absurd. Foolish freshman that he was, Jim still knew he was dealing with something stolen.
Nooooo! I am not a cheap whore! Carby screamed.
Jim pulled some cash out of his wallet slightly in order to look through it. "I don't think I have--"
Suddenly the junkie grabbed the cash. Jim tried to resist. The junkie shoved him hard. Jim sprawled onto the pavement, scraping his elbow. At least he still had his wallet. He looked at the motorcycle. The keys were still in it.
"Oh, what the hell," he said. It was the best option. Jim had taken a class to learn how to ride, but his Mother had never let him get one. Jim stuck to the right lane for most of the way. Hours into the ride he started getting hungry, pulled over, and ate the rest of the bag of chips in his bookbag. That was the last of the food he had; and he had no money to buy more. When he got back on the road again, he felt cold. He had a jacket on, but he had just ridden through the night, and he didn't have enough to eat, and the effect of wind chill on a motorcycle is serious business. Jim eventually stopped again and shifted his backpack around so that the bag was in front of his chest, blocking the wind. It was uncomfortable, and he probably looked silly, but he was beyond the point of caring. He was out of options (the credit card ever watched by his mother was not on that list) and death was not far. His only option was to make it.
Jim was shivering constantly by the time he saw signs for Melissa's school. He wasn't thinking straight, either. Cars would merge on or off, and he often did not move or get out of the way promptly enough. He nearly missed her exit, nearly fell, and navigating the surface streets to her dorm drained every last bit of energy, but he was finally there.
Melissa lived in a dorm, and as dorms go, it was a typical city dorm, which meant that getting inside was a bitch of a process, but, long story short, Melissa eventually showed up at the security desk.
"Love mufffinnnnnn!!" she squealed, and promply jumped through all of the hoops to get Jim allowed in, after the guard performed a thourough serch of his bag for such illicit items as beer and shot glassees. Like a typical university employee performing an interchangeable job position, the guard was kind of a dick, but not terribly, only enough for burned students to include in their bitching. He let them through. "Muffin are you ok?" she asked when they got on the stairs.
Melissa's dorm was warm inside, and normally when coming indoors like that Jim would shiver for a bit and then stop. It hadn't stopped this time. "I'm ok," he said, "just need to warm up. It was a long ride." Then Melissa found out about the motorcycle. She was not happy. There was yelling, and bawling, and arguing. Jim asked her for something to eat but she was too busy being mad at him to hear him. He had little energy for arguing and ended up on her bed in a blanket. His body still hadn't warmed up. That's when Melissa knew something was actually wrong. She put him in the shower, and then had to leave for her karate class.
The shower started to help. Jim couldn't quite get the water hot enough--not without scalding his skin. He didn't realize how long he'd been in there until the hot water started to run out. He had the lever pushed all the way to the right when he realized he had just used up all the girls hot water. Melissa was in a suite because she was doing some kind of honors thing, and there would be three cranky chicks--aw hell Melissa was still mad--four cranky chicks quite unhappy with him. Jim cut off the water when he realized this. Thanks to the shower he had stopped shivering, but was still cold, and stepping out of the bubble of warm, moist air was difficult. He dried himself off as best he could and left the bathroom, intending to head straight for under the covers of Melissa's bed. He ran into Krista as soon as he stepped out of the bathroom.
Krista was wearing a white spaghetti strap top and black pants. She was also about to knock. Knowing that Jim was in the bathroom, she had been standing there, about to knock, for a few minutes. "Melissa asked me to check up on you."
Any other time Jim would have rolled his eyes, but this time he said "Yeah, I'm still so cold, I dunno why." Then he brushed past her. Had he not done so--had he lingered but for a moment, and stolen a second glancce at Krista's cleavage, Krista would have taken the initiative to warm him up her own way. The guise would have started off as a hug, where she would be shocked at how cold he really was, and he please at how damn hot she was (literally) and then Krista would have started rubbing her arms over him under the guise of warming him up, rubbing his self control off with every stroke, and then you can imagine the rest. Instead, Krista insisted that Biff have some tea. To her dismay he got dressed again while she made him some. The tea was nearly too hot to drink but Krista didn't let him put the mug down until he started sipping it. The heat from the tea went straight to his core, and finally, roughly thirty minutes after ending a warm building, Biff's body regained control of its temperature.
So ended Jim's first experience with hypothermia.
The rest of Jim's story, sadly, is not part of this tale. He was coming into adulthood now, and stuck between two domineering women, his mother and a girl named Melissa who wasn't really his girlfriend. Melissa was, in fact, the extra-dependant end of a strange and twisted co-dependent relationship. He was also beginning to want Krista.
Jim, not wanting to hang on to a stolen motorcycle, sold Carby to an engineering student in exchange for money to buy a bus pass home. That's how Jim and Carby parted ways.
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