Vibrations

Chapter 2

I made it to the first stop light before I realized I was going to need gas...

My truck was nearly on empty and as I drove further and further towards home gas was going to do nothing but get harder to find and more and markedly more expensive.

Home. I thought as I drove. I hadn't thought of that place as home in four years... it was just a place that I had grown up. A place I had run from just as fast as I possibly could...

Now my mom was sick, and suddenly it was home? The thought didn't make sense to me.

Why is that place suddenly home? I thought to myself as I pulled into the gas station.

As I pumped my gas the people at the other pumps gave me strange looks, making me wonder why I suddenly felt like an absolute weirdo...

Getting back on the road, I realized that I still had blood stained toilet paper sticking out of both nostrils... I felt like an absolute weirdo, because I looked like an absolute weirdo...

I pulled them both out and threw them out the window, laughing at my own stupidity...

The thought occurred to me then, I was due at work in the morning...

I pulled my phone out and called my boss...

I worked as a legal clerk at a small law firm. It was low level work. Running down leads, looking up cases. Interviewing clients, and potential clients while I took notes. The pay was shit. The work was shit. My boss was a dick. It was still a paycheck though and as much as I hated it, I decide that it was probably not a good idea to dump gas over my entire life and set fire to it before I left town.

He picked up just as I started to hope that I was going to get lucky and the call was going to go to voicemail...

"Jake, I'm glad you called. We've got a problem. I need you to meet with Carey Larson in the morning-"

I cut him off, "I can't. I just got a call. My mom's in the hospital. I have to go back home for a few days."

The line went silent...

I started to wonder...

"Look. Jake, I can't give you any time off right now, we're in the middle of a big case here, I mean this could be a couple hundred thousand dollars' worth of lawsuit here. I mean I'd love to give you a couple of days off, and I'm sympathetic to your situation, but I'm in Tahoe and my wife would kill me if I broke away from this vacation..."

Are you fucking kidding me?

I sat for a minute, hoping against hope he would finally come to his senses and realize exactly what he had just said to me...

The line sat quiet...

Finally, I cleared my throat, "Maybe you don't understand what I'm saying... My mom is in the hospital. I don't know how serious it is. I'm not asking for time off. I'm telling you, I won't be there in the morning."

"Maybe you're not understanding what I'm saying..." He growled, "If you're not at work in the morning, you don't have a job anymore."

I frowned. Well, that sucks. Hey, at least I didn't like the job all that much...

"I understand."

"So, you'll be there in the morning?"

"Nope." I said, hanging up the phone and throwing it on the seat next to me...

Well, there was nothing like burning a few bridges on the way out of town...