"Police reports indicate that Cream the rabbit, age 19, reported that as soon as she caught a whiff of the inside of his van, she knew her life was in danger. After administering pepper spray liberally to his eyes, Cream managed to just barely escape the situation with both her life, and reportedly, her hymen in tact. It is currently unknown as to whether or not the suspect has been apprehended. We'll have more on this later."
St. VD
The television clicks off and I toss the remote onto the sofa.
Exhale slowly through closed lips, making something of an exaggerated raspberry sound, vapidly drumming on my stomach.
Go ahead and judge me for this one.
I give no fucks.
Zero fucks.
I feel like I have to take a shit, but I just did that, like twenty minutes ago. Maybe something's wrong with me. Medically, I mean. Hell, even something psychological. I don't want to know. I briefly consider whether or not I should see a therapist or a doctor tomorrow, but I don't have an answer to that, so I quickly dismiss it.
I gtab my keys off the counter and head out the front door, and into the night, no idea what the future holds for me, or where it's going.
I just go with it, into it.
"You come here alone a lot," she says, breaking my concentration.
I look up from the menu, first at her face, then at her nametag, then back at her face.
Her nametag reads "HELLO! My name is MARINE! (:"
The name on the nametag, as well as the smiley, are written in blue marker.
I find myself blinking dumbly. "Excuse me?"
"You come here alone a lot," she says again. "Don't you have any friends?"
More blinking. I'm caught off guard.
"Sure," I say. "I have friends, yeah. Why?"
"Because you come here alone," she says. "You come here alone all the time. I was wondering if you had any friends."
"Yeah...?"
"Then why do you come here alone? Why don't you invite your friends?"
My first impulse is to ask her what business that is of hers, but I stifle that urge. I think my hunger is just making me irritable, though I can't decide whether or not she's concerned or if she's just nosy. I humor her, anyway.
"Well, a lot of my friends live in Knothole," I tell her, setting the menu down altogether.
"What about your friends up here? In Station Square? Do you have any?"
"I do," I say, "Station Square is a very busy place," I continue. "Most of them have jobs, or school, or significant others. This one friend I have eats chilidogs exclusively, and if I never see another chilidog again, it'll be far too soon."
"Chilidogs?" she asks, raising her eyebrow. Just one. Singular.
"Chilidogs," I say, apprehensively. "He can't get enough of them."
"What do you do when he isn't eating chilidogs, and you aren't alone at a pizza place?"
"Well, I haven't seen him in awhile. I guess we kinda drifted apart."
"So, you're alone, then?"
"Excuse me?"
"You're alone. Your friends are gone, you obviously have no girlfriend. You're alone."
I honestly don't know how to respond to that. I go with impulse, default reaction.
"Uhm. Sure, I guess... Yeah, I guess I am."
There's a sudden emptiness that comes with that realization. It's not something I generally think about, but now that I am, I just... Is this sadness, or is it just kind of dark? I don't know, I can't tell, and I'm not sure if I want to.
"Oh!" She smiles, seemingly excited about my response to this. "In that case, happy VD!"
Color me dumbfounded with a stencil. "Um. What?"
"Happy VD!" she says, folding her hands over her notepad and smiling happily with her eyes closed. She seems very genuine about all of this. "I hope it burns with a fiery passion."
"I don't have-" I start, confused, but then suddenly, I find myself offended. "Wait. Are you saying that since I'm alone I must have some kind of gross disease?"
Her eyes bug out, almost cartoonishly. "What?! I-. No. It's the 14th, silly."
"What?"
"The 14th! St. Vernon's Day! Did you get any Lincoln Logs?"
"What? I don't even. Uh. I don't know what any of that means."
She looks at me with a mixture of "oh shit, he must be stupid," and a tad bit of sympathy. "How long have you lived in Mobotropolis?"
"I dunno, about ten months. Why?"
"Today is a holiday! Oh my, you don't know anything about St. Vernon, do you?"
"Um. No. Not at all. What's a St. Vernon?"
"St. Vernon was a fox, kinda like you. He was a saint."
"I kinda figured he was a saint, given that you call him St. Vernon," I say. "What about him?"
"Nobody particularly liked him," she says. "He died alone."
"He was a saint and nobody particularly liked him?" I ask, curiously.
"Have you ever met a saint anybody liked?"
"No," I tell her honestly, "but I've never met a saint so I don't-"
"Neither have I!" she exclaims. "He killed himeslf on this very day, long ago, so we celebrate in his honor by giving Lincoln Logs to people who are alone, so they have something to do with themselves."
"So, you give Lincoln Logs to people on this day in hopes that they won't kill themselves?"
"Sure do! You haven't gotten any?"
"No," I say, sighing. "And that doesn't make any sense. If someone wants to end their own lives, why would you give them Lincoln Logs? That doesn't make any sense."
"Oh, he didn't want to end his own life. He was just alone. He found himself a bad hobby. He liked to juggle grenades."
"Grenades?"
"Live grenades," she says. "He was alone. Nobody ever told him it was a bad idea. Nobody ever taught him any better."
"How long ago was this?"
"Two years ago," she says confidently. "It became a holiday just last year. In honor of that man being alone and his dangerous hobbies."
"Why Lincoln Logs, specifically?"
"It's not a dangerous hobby," she says.
"I guess that makes sense," I respond.
"Are you ready to order?" she asks, earnestly.
"I don't think so," I say, picking up and opening my menu again before looking at it.
"You want the personal sized pepperoni with jalapenos, right?" she asks, presumptively.
"Yeah, that's what I usually get, but-" I start, but I'm cut off.
"You always look at the menu for like half an hour and get the same thing. Just go ahead and get it."
She's right, and I hate her for it. I order exactly that and a drink.
"Diet, right?" she asks me, continuing her assumptive nature.
I usually order regular, but I look down at my gut and feel bad, so I just say it. "Sure."
I eat the pizza and drink the diet soda, and she brings me a giant pack of Lincoln Logs with my check. I laugh and sigh, signing the check and leaving a good 30% tip.
Then I get up.
And I walk out.
I'm on the streets, and it makes sense, it does, all at once.
I'm alone.
Surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people, all with their own walls, most of which are physical, a lot of which are based on the fact that I won't ever meet them.
It's a weird concept to me. One I don't fully understand.
A homeless person asks me for a dollar and I give him one. I walk a few steps ahead of him and feel a knife at my neck.
"Give me all your money," the voice demands, and I tell him to get it out of my back pocket.
He fumbles with it and starts to leave, before I turn around and shout towards him in a fit of I don't know what; "Can I have my ID back, please? I kinda need that and you don't."
He stops what he's doing and opens the wallet, drops my ID on the cold pavement and runs off. I walk over to it and pick it up.
Study it for a second. Miles Prower. I wonder who I really am, though. Who I've become through all of this. I start to laugh and cry at the same time, and when I look up, the homeless cat I just gave a dollar is there.
"Here," he says, stuffing the dollar I gave him between my finger and the license. "You need this more than me, I think."
"I don't-"
"It's okay," he says, smiling. "I'm used to being homeless. I'm used to being broke. Just take it back. You might need it. To keep yourself together."
"What's your name?" I ask.
"Jay," he says, offering his hand. "Jay the Tabby Cat. You?"
"Miles Prower," I say, taking his hand and shaking it firmly. "You can call me Tails. I'll get you back when I can."
"I know you will," he says, smiling apologetically. "You're a good guy. I can see that much. You do what you can. Remember; you haven't lost a lot."
A tight-lipped smile escapes me. "I know. I'm sorry."
"No need," he says.
And he turns his back to me, and I don't know how I feel. That's the closest I've been to anyone in awhile. I feel alone.
Shifting my barrel of Lincoln Logs from one arm to the other, I turn and walk towards home.
I'm waiting in line at the coffee shop, and the lady in front of me is bitching at the bunny at the counter about something.
I don't even know. Not sure I care. Not sure I ever will.
I'm lost in myself. Asking myself what now, where do I go, what do I do. So what if I do nothing at all? I don't know. I'm not sure, but I'm not afraid.
The line moves as the old dog gets out of the way.
"Can I get a-"
"Plain coffee, right?" the rabbit asks. "You'll take care of the rest yourself?"
"Yeah," I say, dumbfounded. "How did you know?"
"That's what you get every time you come here."
"Oh. Sorry, I didn't recognize you," I say, thinking about it. I've seen him here before. He's always working here.
"Is this all you do?" he asks, genuinely. "Is this all you have to say about your life? Coffee and cigarettes? Meaningless distractions from what a piece of shit you are?"
"Not everybody is Hemingway," I tell him, truthfully. "If you seek answers, feelings, insight, maybe I'm not the best person to look towards. I'm broken. I come from unanswered questions. I exist in a world where what you're given is what you get. I'm not an interesting person. I want my coffee black, and I'll add two creams and three sugars to it later. If you want a story, come to me. If you want poetry, go read one of your goddamn college books."
He looks at me, annoyed, but he hands me my coffee. And that's what I was after. Take it back to a random table and sit down, setting my barrel of Lincoln Logs down at the table. Add three sugars and two creams, in that order, because cream cools down the coffee, I imagine, before the sugar dissolves. I was told once that wasn't the case, but I haven't a fuck to give. I'm a man of habit. So, I do what I do, and that's that.
Take a small sip of the coffee and it's too hot. That's when the bell hanging over the front door rings.
It's a rabbit. A female rabbit, and she goes up to the corner and orders. I go back to my coffee, watching the cream swirl around in it until it settles.
The rabbit walks up to my table. "Anyone sitting here?"
"No," I say, barely giving her a glance. I become shy, and I couldn't tell you the reason.
She sits and she sips her coffee before practically discarding it. Apparently, it's too hot for her, too.
"You're alone?" she asks.
"Currently? Yeah," I say, thinking that's fairly obvious. "I wasn't sitting with anybody. I feel like that's fairly obvious."
I look up and her glance points towards the Lincoln Logs. "No," she says giggling. "I mean that. You're alone, aren't you?"
That's when I recognize her. The girl from the news.
"You're Cream, right?" I almost feel bad asking.
She chuckles. "Yeah," she says. "Your name?"
"Miles," I say.
"Nice to meet you, Miles," she responds happily, completely ignoring the issue.
"You were in that creepy guy's van. What happened?"
I'm looking her in the eyes. Her eyes are brown, and very pretty.
"Well, I was stranded out miles away from my house. I was on my way to take the subway, because I didn't have the means to get my car fixed from where it broke down. I didn't have a phone on me, or anything. Some guy offered me a ride, so I took it. I got in, and there were corpses in the back."
"Corpses?" I ask.
"Corpses," she says. "Carrion beyond belief. I maced him and bounced. Called the police from a payphone."
"Did they catch him?"
"Yeah," she says. "They caught him dead, in the back of his own van, hanging from his belt, which was fixed to the roof, with his dick in his hands. Over the corpses."
"Jesus," I say. I don't know what else to say.
She smiles. "I made it out alive, didn't I?"
"That's true. Still horrible, though. I'm glad you did."
"I'm glad I did, too," she says, picking up her coffee and taking a nice, long sip of it.
I follow suit, even though I feel bad. The coffee is warm now. Not too hot. Not too cold. Just right.
We sit in silence and enjoy our coffee. Sometimes that's all we have. The silent company of others, who may or may not care about us.
But sometimes, enjoying silence with anyone, even yourself, isn't such a bad thing.