Growing up a Thief

Chapter 8: Those Eyes

      Every kid's dream is to go on an adventure with his best friend; you spend your entire childhood talking about the open road. What Richie is proposing is just that, one hell of an adventure. The scary part is I think we can pull it off. I spent the next few hours talking out the plan with him and the more he talks, the less I doubt our success. The problem is, this isn't just two kids packing their bags and going camping outside the city. This means going across the country, to end up in a colder place than where we started. 

     "Look man, the way I see it, we stay here a few weeks, a month at the most, and we head out on the road. By then winter will be over, it hasn't snowed in weeks anyways," Richie explains while he throws a rubber ball up against a wall in the loading dock. 

     "Just because it's not cold here doesn't mean anything. Alaska is cold most of the year, which means we can't stay there for very long without a place to live." All of this talk has left me with a headache, I need to sleep on it. Even though it's still pretty early in the evening, I tell Richie I'm going to get some rest and offer him a place to crash.

     "I was just about to head out anyways. I'm going to go have a talk with Bobby up at the diner and see if he can help us out with our transportation issues," he says as he makes his way towards the exit, and we agree to meet up at the diner first thing tomorrow morning. 

     As you could imagine it takes me a while to fall asleep, my mind is flooded with ideas and doubt. I decide to grab my notebook and make a list of things that would need to be taken care of before we left. The longer it takes to fall asleep the longer the list becomes. There are two major issues, the way I see it. How are we going to get there, and where are we going to live? Even though Richie says he has money saved up, I can't imagine it's enough to live on for very long.

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     The next morning I made my way through the busy streets of the city, to Bobby's diner. By the time I get there, Richie is sitting at the counter with his hat hanging off the back of the chair, eating his usual. Bobby sees me come in first. "James, how the hell are ya?" Bobby announces, with a giant smile on his face and his hands tucked into his apron. "How about some flapjacks on the house?"

     "Morning, Bobby, I'm good. I'd love some, thank you," I say self-consciously, hoping he didn't ask because he hears my stomach growling. "Richie." I pat him on the shoulder to say hello and he responds with his mouth full of eggs. 

     "So, Richie tells me you guys are going on a little trip?" Bobby says while squirting a bottle of oil on the grill, which lets out a large hissing sound and fills the kitchen with smoke. 

     "Yeah, that is if we don't freeze to death on the way there," I say with a chuckle. Followed by another mumble from Richie as he washes his food down with soda. 

     "Look, man, the way I see it, you guys are going to have to hop some trains to get to the west coast. I might be able to get you on a bus for part of the way. Son of a..." He pauses after grease jumps off the grill and burns his arm. "I was telling your buddy here that it will not be a straight shot. Its going to be a long trip." He pauses again as he pours out a large bag of hash browns on one half of the grill. 

     

     "How long do you think it will take to get there?" I ask while spinning slowly on the stool.

"Well, straight there would take about a week, but seeing how y'all are gonna wanna sleep at some point my guess is about nine or ten days," he answers, cracking eggs on the counter top.

Richie swallows and lets out a burp. "I was telling him we could get a tent and camp out for most of the trip, that would save us a bunch of money."

"You think we can pull this off, Bobby?" I ask hesitantly, secretly hoping he will try and talk us out of it.

He lets out a chuckle, "Man when I was y'alls age my buddies and I would go on trips like this all the time and for ol' Richie here, he might not have a choice. Cops have been combing this block for a while now looking for him." Bobby flips the pan full of eggs with ease while taking a sip of his coffee. "You just gotta have the stones to make it the whole way, gotta tell yourself there ain't no turning back. But most of all..." He pauses for another sip of coffee. "You gotta try and have fun, make the best out of this. You're going to look back at it your whole life." Another loud sizzling sound, followed by a cloud of steam, comes off the grill as he squirts water on it for some reason.

     "UNCLE BOBBY!" A loud female voice from a cracked open door steals our attention.  

     "Who's that?" I quietly ask Richie.

     "His niece Casey, she runs the books for him." Right after his response, I peek around Richie and look through the door.

     The first thing I notice about her are her eyes; it may seem hard to believe but even from across the room I'm mesmerized by them. She has large purple eyes, like nothing I have ever seen before. From what I can tell she's gotta be a few years older than Richie and I. "She's gorgeous..." I say just before falling off the stool onto my side, I must have lost my balance from leaning over to look around Richie. 

     I get up as smoothly as I can, but the damage is already done. Richie and Bobby erupt in laughter as I start brushing off the dust on my pants. "Haha, very funny guys. Man, do you ever clean these floors? My pants are covered..." As I turn, I see Casey standing directly behind me, biting her lip, trying not to laugh at my clumsiness.

     "Sorry, that's my job," Casey says, which for some reason causes my legs to go weak. She's talking to me!

     "Oh no, no it's okay, I was just..." I can't seem to finish a sentence, when Richie saves the day.

     "Casey this is James, James this is Casey." He grabs my shoulder and pushes me towards her. I wipe my hand off on my jeans and reach it out towards her. She shakes my hand and giggles. 

     "Mr. Smooth here is the one we were talking about earlier," Bobby says while putting my food on the table. 

     "Ahh, Alaska huh? Nice to meet you." She smiles and I'm pulled away from staring in her eyes long enough to shoot a glare at Richie. How many people is he planning on telling about our little adventure? Did he forget people are going to be looking for us? 

     She gives me one last smile before making her way back to the office. She seems pretty busy. My attention goes back to the food once the office door closes and I climb my way back on the stool to enjoy my breakfast. We spend the next hour or so talking with Bobby about his days on the road, traveling state to state. "What you boys need to do is head up to the library and check out some maps with train routs on them. That should get you started, and we will go from there." I nod in agreement and just before Richie and I get up to leave, I look back at the closed office door, contemplating whether or not to say goodbye to my new crush.