Lucid Waking

Archive for September, 2008

Picnic

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“Me and You Against the World” (Section 2)

        Lily didn’t react as well to his plan as she had expected to and definitely not as well as Noah had hoped.
        “What!” she screeched. Noah winced. But she heard him out and agreed to go with his plan. She didn’t feel she had a choice, but part of her didn’t want to let him down. He was charismatic and she did feel a sort of devotion to him after all he had done for her. He did save her dignity the previous night and paid for her place to stay.
        She had assumed her age played a role in the job she was help him with, but in actuality, it didn’t make any difference. Lily knew she wasn’t the best actress, but she was stoic faced and quiet. She blended into the scenery and was convincing enough that he left with a rather large check and shares of stock.
        “Thanks,” he said once they got into the car and started driving. “I lost my previous partner to a car crash yesterday.” He paused and examined her out of the corner of his eye. “Sorry to put you through that.”
        “No, it’s fine,” she said. “Just please take me home.”
        He sped off down the interstate towards Chicago. In the light of day the ride wasn’t too menacing. The bright orange and green signs were comforting as was the steady whirr of the wheels on the road. He reached to turn on the radio and let it quietly run as they went, trying to break the silent tension between them. She leaned back in her seat and watched the cars go by, remaining silent.

        “You never told me what you were doing hitchhiking that night,” Noah said as they sped down the highway much later. Once he was confidant they had lost the cops, his speed slowed to join with the rest of the cars. Lily sighed.
        “Trying to get to Union station so I could take the train back to school. My car had broken down several miles back and for some reason I tried to walk back to Chicago to take the train. Obviously it didn’t work.”
        “You went to school?”
        “Well, I was failing,” she said. “I don’t have patience for school work.”

        “I can’t believe I helped you with a con job,” Lily said, a tad disgusted with herself.
        “I’ve got to make a living somehow,” he said. She expected more, but he was silent.
        “Why do you do it?”
        He chuckled. “Which reason do you want to hear: I’m addicted to lying, I’m a mercenary, or I work as part of a huge corporation that wishes to take over the world?”
        “I want the truth.”
        He sighed. “It’s difficult to explain. See…well, it all starts on a small farm in Missouri where a farmer was having a lot of trouble making ends meet. A large farming corporation threatened to buy this farmer’s land—leaving him and his family homeless—in order to build up their business. As the business waits for the bank to take the land and resell it, the farmer’s son decides to take the money matter into his own hands. He runs away from home and starts studying the economic section of the newspaper and eventually learns how businesses work. So, he swindles large companies that can afford to spare a few hundred thousand dollars and then sends that money to his parents in Missouri. I mean, that’s how it started, but it’s much more complicated than that.”
        “Doesn’t seem so complicated.”
        “Ever wonder why you had to be 21?”
        “Now that you mention it…”
        “I met a girl who already worked as a con artist and she taught me basically everything she knew. She was killed in a car crash yesterday and you sort of reminded me of her. Your ages even matched.”
        “You loved her?”
        “No,” he said, “but she was like a sister to me.”
        He stopped and focused on the road. Having listened to his story, she almost trusted him. She wasn’t sure about having her age as a measure of trust, but he didn’t leave her on the side of the road or take advantage of her. And he was taking her back to Chicago. Why? The school’s tuition was much to high to be paying when she was barely passing her classes. It didn’t seem worth it to go back. She needed a job and without a college degree, her options were severely limited. She had a defeated feeling doors closing off to her every time she saw an “F” on her papers and tests, but she finally saw an opening for her to escape her demise. Why did she want to go back when she would certainly be crushed by reality? She could finally see a sunny future, so why did she insist on staying in the rain?
        “I could help you, you know. I…I really need a job and I’m willing to go along with these…missions of yours if you want.”
        “I wouldn’t call them missions.”
        “That’s not the point.”
        He glanced at her and then back at the road. “Yeah, sure,” he said to hide his delight.
        The radio changed songs to a more jazzy number. He turned up the volume.
        "Well, it’s you and me against the world, then.”
        “That’s a song you know.”
        “Is it?” he smiled, “Then it’s our song.”
        “All right.”
        Lily leaned back in the seat and gazed out the window. She felt safe and warm, although she didn’t know why yet. The world was gray and icy from the rain, but she felt the same way that she did on a sunny day. She had decided it wasn’t love, not at that point anyway, but it was something more distant. She didn’t know what it was and didn’t really care. She had a job, she was safe, and however criminal Noah intended to be, he was and continued to be her family.

I’m a Little Teapot…

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“Me and You Against the World” (Section 1)

        “Noah, it’s our song,” Lily said turning the volume of the radio so high the car practically shook. She hoped the other drivers would hear it outside the car as they passed. “Me and you against the world!” the song exclaimed through the speakers. She smiled and leaned back in her seat.
        “Not so loud, Lily,” Noah said quickly glancing in the rearview mirror. “Turn that down, please. I’ve got to concentrate.”
        She reluctantly complied, but kept it loud enough to cover the roar of the car and pavement. She reminisced in her seat about the rainstorm. She seldom thought about the rainstorm, she much preferred the morning after, but it was such a crucial turning point in her life that she often thought about it when her adrenaline had worn down.
        It was a night where everyone could hear the rain. It flooded the streets, overfilled the sewers, swept cars up in a single wave. Hundreds of cars on the highway split the water like Moses, drenching her huddled body on the shoulder of the road in a mass of heavy cold. She stuck out her now blue thumb one more time trying to get anyone to stop. But the rain was a blanket of wet and she couldn’t see into the light of the cars and she knew the windshields were too smeared with water to see her. Finally, a car stopped a few feet away from her in the shoulder and blinked its lights. She walked over to the driver’s side as the window went down.
        “Need a lift?” a man asked her. He squinted up into the rain through the small slit of open window he let her talk through.
        “Yes,” she said. “I need to go to Union Station.”
        “Sure, sure,” he said. “Get in back.” The window shut before she could thank him and she opened the back door of the car quickly and slipped inside.
        She hadn’t noticed how nice the car was until she was out of the rain. It had a heavy smell of leather and aftershave with a black coffee interior. The man reached over and turned on the heat for her and a blast of warm air hit her in the face from a vent she couldn’t see. She thanked him, but he didn’t reply and only asked her again where she wanted to go.
        “Union station,” she repeated.
        He made an affirmative grunt from the front seat. She glanced out the blurry windows as they past, but all of the signs looked like waves of color and the lights were will-o-the-wisps. She leaned back in the car inhaling the leather while he drove in silence into the city.
        She woke up a little while later. The car was stopped but she couldn’t see her destination for all of the water. The man was gone along with the keys. The world outside was dark and the rain still pounded on the roof of the car. She reached out for the handle of the door, but when she pushed to open it, it didn’t budge.
        “Looks like someone’s awake,” another male said. The door was shut and then flung open and someone reached in and pulled her out into a soaking wet parking lot of a highway oasis. About six men came to her side of the car and something hit her in the stomach like an anvil. She kicked one and two grabbed her legs; the group of men becoming something of a hydra. She reached out to punch another and both her arms were stuck. She closed her eyes and tried to tighten up, willing the tears out of her eyes so she could see a weakness in their armor. She felt a hand reach for the wallet in her pocket…
        Then the headlights of a car hit the back of the mob and scattered them like vampires to the sun. She fell onto the ground with a thud and barely got her head far enough away before the kidnapping vehicle sped away towards the highway. She pushed herself up and tried to see the new car. The rain settled up enough for her to see a figure get out of the driving seat and walk towards her. She made out the letters and numbers on his license plate: ME N U 218. She willed herself not to black out, but she felt faint. She nodded her head and grabbed the hand that reached out to help her. No more, she thought and then fainted.
        She woke up in the bed of a motel room cursing herself violently. But she was dressed and lying neatly on top of the covers. She got up and looked around the small room. Besides having one bed, everything else was unused and she had a sinking feeling she was all alone. She didn’t know why since the events of the previous night were enough for her to wish to be alone for centuries. There was a knock at her door and she walked cautiously over to open it.
        “Morning,” the boy at her door said. He smiled. “I understand if you don’t want to let me in, but I promise I’m not going to touch you.”
        He was wearing a black tee shirt and jeans with red and black converse shoes and he had a dark gray newsboy cap in one hand. His eyes were light bluish gray like winter and his hair cherry wood brown. In the morning sun it looked much more red than she found out it actually was. He stepped back to lean against the railing of the balcony across from her door. Although she could see a ghost of his breath, he wasn’t wearing a jacket; she was shivering.
        Lily opened the door a little wider. “What do you want?”
        “Sorry I didn’t introduce myself last night, you seemed pretty distraught, so I thought I’d let you sleep.” He extended his hand. “I’m Noah.”
        “Lily,” she said. “And thanks for helping me…and giving me this room to myself.”
        “It’s only fair,” he said.
        “What do you mean?”
        “Oh, sorry. I took the liberty of seeing who you were. Don’t worry, you’re wallet is still in your jacket pocket. But I was wondering if you were interested in doing me a favor. You are twenty-one after all.”
        “I don’t think so.”
        “Well, sorry to bother you, then,” he said. He snapped his cap on his head and gave her a little nod before stuffing his hands in his jean pockets and heading down the stairs towards his car. She shivered in the cold and headed back inside. Turning on the television, she slumped on the bed.
        “Good morning, Green Bay. The temperature today is—”
        She shut it off suddenly grasped by a terror she couldn’t explain. Her groggy mind was coming to like an old machine finally warming up to the tasks at hand. She ran to the door and down the stairs running after the boy and hoping—praying—he would be in the vicinity. Green Bay was a long way from Chicago.
        As she ran around the front of the building a blue car stopped and Noah got out of the driver’s side. She didn’t care that he was illegally parked or the fact that he seemed to know she would be running after him in a short enough time.
        “Please,” she said. The whine in her voice surprised her. “Take me back home.”
        “And where would that be?” he said patiently.
        “I need to get to Union Station,” she started and then stopped. “Well, just take me to Chicago.”
        “I hate to seem rude,” he said leaning against his car like James Dean, “but I don’t want to keep doing favors for a stranger who doesn’t do something in return. I don’t have time to drive all the way back to Chicago for you. I do have a job.”
        “But I have no other way of getting there,” Lily said. “You already know I don’t have money for a bus or train.”
        “All I’m asking is that you help me with something along the way.”
        “Fine,” Lily said. “Just don’t get me arrested or hurt.”
        Noah smiled. “Absolutely not. I just need an extra set of hands for something. I’ll tell you more about it in the car.”
        And the rest was history, Lily thought, smiling to herself. The song faded off the radio and Lily reached over to turn the volume down.
        “I think we finally lost them,” Noah said.
        “Good.”

A Breeze from Alabama by Scott Joplin

It was easy for her to forget her troubles
On old Broadway street.
They transformed the old theater
To play silent pictures
Instead of a stage for recitatives.
She couldn’t believe her luck
When it opened up–
Fifteen cents a ticket
She could afford to see Hollywood
Practically free!

The stock market fell, but she was as happy as could be
Because the price of tickets dropped dramatically
She still had her house and family
And her job hadn’t kicked her out.
Though the only place you saw her was at the movie house
She loved the films that played
Silent, sound, she’d always stay
The movie staff would push her out
As she craned to get a last glimpse of the film
For her tenth time.
She loved the movies–
Silent, sound, jazz, comedy,
It was better than the stage
She had lost her job at the stage
She worked in a factory and hoped
The films would be better to those actors
Than the stage was to her.

(Listen to it)