Code Junkie

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"You were acting weird back there, Jerry," Ted says.

The car is quiet and the dim lights on the highway slowly paint the interior of the car and rapidly dissolve at timed intervals. A gentle rain is present, but that is the baseline precipitation of Deptford County. No further storms are called for the night. It is pleasant and the car had been silent for almost a half hour up until this break.

"I just..." Jerry's suddenly wide awake and flustered. "I don't know."

"Were you and Mitch also an item or something, Jerr?" I said sarcastically.

"No, Kevin," he was blushing in the dark. "Dammit, no. I just... he. I just get nervous in front of pretty people."

The entire car is silent. Jerry is beside himself in embarrassment and the rest of us are wearing shit-eating grins and holding back the floodgate of hysterics.

"In front of... pretty people?" Ted asks.

"Y-yes," Jerry replies. We all lose our jimmies and began laughing. He is obviously uncomfortable at first, but then regains the sense of camaraderie, realizing that this car is literally full of his best and closest friends.

"Wait," I say. "Does that mean I'm not pretty?"

"I've known you forever."

"What about me?" Sara pipes in. She reaches back and places a hand on Jerry's knee.

"Sara, stop," Jerry curls away.

We're all smiles.

A few miles more, we are at an ice cream stand.

We are all sitting on the hood of Sara's car, except for Jerry, who is sitting on the concrete curb in front of the parlor. The building has windows opened directly to the sidewalk, so customers can just walk up and order without having to go inside. The city is a lot warmer than where we were near the shore and there is a decent turnout. A handful of teenagers stand stiff, surrounded by the families and flocks of misbehaved children, and a few elderly couples sit on the wooden benches dotting the walk.

Ted and Jerry are discussing something about a new video game and Sara is looking at her cell phone, sending text messages to some unknown friend. She looks content; the guys, spirited. I'm watching the girls work behind the counter, through the glass windows and walls of the establishment. They are all, maybe six of them, wearing neon green shirts, some hemmed tight around the back, with black visor caps, all bearing the company's emblem. They all look to be around either high school age, or early in their college years. The one girl, the one who took our order minutes ago, she's smiling. She's either great at putting up with people's petty bullshit, or lost the will to be miserable anymore.

She has a very mousy face with rounded cheeks that glisten with the mild acne and hormonal surplus of youth. Her brown eyes sparkle in the flickering florescent glow of the interior and she bats away the occasional mosquito that breaks the threshold of the window into the cool, air-conditioned workspace within. Her shoulder-length brown hair is pulled back and falls slightly back under the restraint of the visor. It's her break now. Another girl comes and takes her place. She is much taller than the brunette, but equally as pretty. Her eyes are huge and black, cataracted by a shocking burst of grey coloring. Her skin is dark, much darker than her co-worker and her smiles is not as rehearsed. She looks content, but she actually acknowledges, even if she does not mean to, that this is a menial job.

The girl before her, the mousy one, no, maybe squirrel is more suitable (it's all in the cheeks) she's back behind the partitioned wall, behind the cooling machines and vats of ice and dispensers, and I can see her leaning on the wall, just within their break room. I'm watching all of this from the hood of Sara's car. I can see straight through the closed glass door, the fury of food-service activity and the large door frame into their back area. She's leaning on the wall, staring down at a black cell phone cradled in her hand. She occasionally sips from a half-empty bottle of spring water and looks up to the clock that I cannot see, mounted on the wall. Cheeks, she frowns at whatever message she has received. Probably bad domestic news. I know her type. Cheeks, I can see it all: happily steady with a boy at Deptford County Regional and they have it all planned out. The same college, an apartment together, marriage, and fuck, even kids. She wants it all. But the guy, he doesn't know what the hell he's doing. He's saying yes because she goes down on him every so often. She's saying yes because she's in love. He expresses doubts and ruins Cheeks' night at work. They end up arguing and breaking up shortly before prom. The boy finds another poor excuse for a relationship and the girl experiences legitimate heartbreak.

As I see this, a couple crosses my line of vision with Cheeks. Thirty yards, if that, and glass and concrete are all that separate me and her, and even with all these little shits and old people running around, only this passing couple has successfully stolen my attention away from this girl. My eyes break from Cheeks and follow them. The boy, he is probably seventeen and wearing an old military jacket that is a size and a half too large. Faded patches and buttons dot the breast and shoulders. The girl he is with is around his age, too, but a few inches taller has an incredible length of black, flowing hair. The boy, of course, has no concern for me. He's walking proud, his chest slightly puffed out, a cocky, thin, almost-nonexistent smile on his face. The girl, she notices me, I don't know why, and she stares.

Oh, of course I know why.

Her big eyes stare into my soul and I am looking at my Mariah. Not the dead one, the one who haunts the marine life of my nightmares, but the girl I loved. She sees me notice, and her beautiful pale cheeks blush rapidly, toxic in the artificial fluorescent scene. She squeezes the arm of the boy and buries her face in his shoulder. They are almost beyond me, I am losing direct sight of their faces, walking. I drop my sherbert to the ground and stand. I begin to follow them.

Sara looks up from her phone and asks, Kevin? But I am following the couple. There are too many people, too many terrible children and waste-of-space teenagers. I knee into one's head by accident and his bitch mother raises her voice. I look past her and remain locked on Mariah. I am making progress, but they are disappearing down the city sidewalk. I get about halfway down the block and they are maybe twenty feet in front of me. I react.

"Mariah!"

The couple stops. The boy cracks his neck and remains staring forward. Mariah, in a floral print dress, she holds tight to the boy and flattens the front of her clothes. No one makes a sound. We are alone on an entirely different plane of existence within the city. They begin to move again and head towards the corner. Wait!

Just as they round the corner, the boy leans forward a bit, previously veiled by the copy of Mariah and smirks at me. It is now me who stops dead in my tracks. The little fucker in the army jacket is me. High school me. Kevin. I blink twice. The world is still a vacuum of warped silence. They disappear around the corner, gone. I think to follow them—I am torn from the dreamlike sensation by an explosion of piercing noise. A fire engine goes tearing past me on my left down the city street, its siren blaring at a decibel level beyond my comprehension. It turns the corner, as if following the couple and disappears down the road, its red and blue lights splashing back into my line of vision, its noise still echoing away.

I follow the path and stand on the corner. There is no one in front of me, except a homeless man asleep in a doorway and the fire engine slowing towards the far end of the street. A townhouse's second floor is on fire and there is already another fire truck present. Sara approaches me from behind. She puts her arm on my shoulder and asks is everything alright—and then she, too, sees the house on fire at the end of the block. She must stand for a moment and empathize with me the plight of the family who just lost their home. I could not care less about them. I am still staring in the wake of those two ghosts of my former self.