A/N: Thanks for reading! This is a bit of an experiment. It has taken me a long time to figure out this character's voice. I always appreciate feedback! Just as an extra warning, this story is for adults only! It contains all kinds of adult topics including sex, violence, illicit drug use, loads of expletives and the nonconsensual corporal punishment of a teenaged girl. If any of these things offend you, for Pete's sake don't read this story! Also, I do not condone the spanking of children.

This is supposed to be an autobiography. Rube told me to write an autobiography. I asked how long. He said, "Until I tell you to stop writing." That's a typical response. I asked him where I should start. "Start with birth, work your way up to death." I told him that technically I couldn't write an autobiography, because it's supposed to be a history of my life and technically I don't have a life. He didn't say anything to that.

We just got back from the desert, and Rube is pissed at me. I thought he was going to scream at me, or beat me, or push me out of the truck, but he didn't. When Rube is really, really mad he doesn't yell or freak out. He just ignores you. It makes you feel about an inch tall. For two days of driving, he basically ignored me and listened to the radio. He only talked to me when we stopped to eat or pee or once when he had to put water in the radiator. It was like he didn't care that I was there, that I was the reason that he had to take so much time off of work and come get me in Nevada, that I had been questioned by the police. Oh yeah, and that I stole his truck and he had to pay three hundred dollars to get it out of impound. The whole time I was on the edge of my seat, waiting for him to start the yelling. It sucked. Then we got here and he gave me a notebook and a pen and told me to sit down. I thought he was going to make me write sentences, like the definition of "authority" or "respect", like he normally does. Instead he told me to start writing the story of my life. He's sitting at his desk right now trying to catch up on paperwork from the days he missed.

I guess I'd better look like I'm writing something.

This is so fucking pointless.

Driving across the desert was boring, but it reminded me of coming to Seattle for the first time. One day Santos handed me an envelope that had a bus ticket, an address and a name, and told me I was getting transferred. I was supposed to leave the next day. I was surprised. I knew people got transferred, but I thought it wouldn't happen to me for years and years. I had only been undead for about six months. I was also surprised to be going to Seattle of all of the places in the world. I wondered who made these kinds of decisions, and what they were based on. I mean, Lenore had been itching to be transferred overseas for years. She loves Europe and always talks about how much she wishes she lived there, but she never got transferred. I didn't wish anything like that.

Santos was really nice to me the day before I left, which surprised me. I think he didn't want me to leave mad at him. We stayed out pretty much all night. I won't write about the things we did, because it's nobody's business, and it's not like anyone's going to read this except Rube, and I already knows what he thinks of what I do for fun and I really don't feel like hearing it again. Anyway, I got on the bus at about five in the morning and I took some sleeping pills that knocked me out for about eight hours. That's pretty much what I did the whole trip. I mean, what else is there to do on a bus? Read a book? Boring. We stopped every four or six hours, but I just slept while everyone else got off and ate. When I wasn't asleep I was watching the other people on the bus. They all sucked. Some old guy tried to talk to me, but I glared at him and he gave up. I watched the scenery. Jesus, this story is turning out just as boring as the real life experience. I would write about how I liked looking at the mountains and the trees, and that it was a whole lot greener than Nevada, but everybody knows that.

We finally got to Seattle. It was raining, big surprise. I took a cab from the bus depot to the address on the envelope. It turned out that I was supposed to meet my new boss at "Der Waffle Haus", one of the kitschy 24-hour breakfast places that you see in backwards places. I'd never been in one. It wasn't too bad, but I felt like shit. I felt scummy and dirty from the bus ride. It was early Sunday morning, and no one was around except waitresses and a couple of locals sitting, drinking coffee. The bathroom was empty so I locked the door and washed up before I changed clothes. Just doing those two things made me feel a million times better. I also took a couple of oxys, that might have had something to do with it.

I was supposed to meet someone named Rube, and I didn't know what he or she was supposed to look like. So I sat in a booth and ordered some coffee, because I wasn't hungry, and I looked through some magazines I bought the day before at a gas station. That didn't last long. It was hard to sit still.

There was a couple sitting across the restaurant, and they were both wearing plaid shirts. They dude even had a big beard. Classic! I took a picture of them with my cell phone. I guess I wasn't very discreet, because they gave me a dirty look. There was another middle-aged guy sitting the next booth over from me. He had a newspaper and he was doing the crossword puzzle. I slid over to the seat closest to him and watched him fill in the little squares from over the divider.

I noticed that when I started watching him, he stopped filling in the puzzle squares. His pen moved back and forth from clue 23-down to clue 23-across, over and over. After a minute, he turned around and looked at me.

"What?" He looked annoyed.

I asked him if he was Rube. He said yes. He said, "You're Jane Raley." I said yes. He said, "You're fucking kidding me."

I doubt that anyone will ever read this, but if for anyone who does, I just want to point out to you: THAT is how I met Rube. He snapped at me because I was messing up his concentration for his precious crossword puzzle, then he was a total asshole when he found out who I was. Extremely rude, right? Now imagine that every fucking day. That's my life.

He told me to sit down in his booth with him.

"I wasn't expecting you until Tuesday."

"Well, here I am."

He asked me how old I am. Now, what the fuck does that matter? I still think that was a weird question. I mean, the DMV says that I am 21. I will always be 21. I told him as much. He just looked at me.

"You're a smart ass. That isn't going to work for me."

Again, whoever reads this: Welcome to my life.

So I told him my real age. This was in January, so I would have just turned 17, if I had still been alive. Rube looked disgusted. By this time, I was getting kind of annoyed myself. Who was this guy to act like such a jerk, without even knowing me? He told me that he knew I'd only been dead - or undead - I still get those confused - for six months, and that it was a bad sign that I had already been transferred. Then he said something like this:

"I've got to tell you Jane, I don't have a good feeling about this. You're young and you're stupid. I could probably handle those things on their own, but you also have a reputation for knowing the wrong people who do the wrong things, and you have a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"I'm not stupid."

"You were stupid enough to try to lie to me about your age within the first thirty seconds of meeting me. Not a great way to start off a professional relationship." Rube had started doing the crossword puzzle again as he spoke.

"I didn't lie!" He didn't respond. He just kept doing his stupid puzzle. I was angry, so I grabbed newspaper and threw it to the other side of the table. I don't know what I thought he would do. I know what Santos would have done. He would have slugged me. I stared at Rube, and he stared at me. He didn't look angry. He looked like he was thinking. A waitress walked by. I didn't know her at the time, but later I met her. Her name is Kiffany. She gave us a look as she passed, like 'What are you crazy white people doing?'.

Rube picked up his paper and smoothed it out. This is the way he talks, which can be really annoying because a lot of the time it seems like he's not so much talking to you as talking at you.

"I guess this is the part when I give you a good talking-to, some guidance to impress on you the importance of doing this job well, taking pride in your work and keeping your nose clean." He paused. "To be honest, I just don't care. You do your job. I'll do my job. We'll stay out of each others' way. How does that sound?"

I didn't expect him to say that. He went back to doing his puzzle while I sat there, confused. Then he told me to leave and not come back until Tuesday. So I left.

Rube just told me to go to bed, so in conclusion: Writing sucks, my hand hurts, and Rube's an asshat. THE END.