Upon his first day stepping behind the counter, he'd been informed not to worry, that soon enough the pungent stench of gasoline and diesel fuel would fade into the background, that'd it'd be natural as the air he breathed.
He had been lied to.
Kenny's nose crinkled as another whiff hit him with the door swinging open and a tired man stumbling in towards the coffee dispenser. Glancing out his window, he was greeted with the pleasure of seeing yet another brilliant patron missing their plastic canister and splashing the toxic liquid across the pavement before finally realizing that the cylindrical nozzle does indeed fit into the round hole. He sighed, knowing that it was about a fifty-fifty chance that that same genius would barge into his station, demanding that what they spilled be refunded from their overpriced purchase. Kenny would have to stand there in his logoed ball cap tightened too tightly via Velcro around his head, feel the band pressing violently against his skull as the customer would ramble nonsensically. "Something something get our oil cheap from 'merica n' stop payin' them damn Iraqis to kill our troops." Never mind that their petroleum was delivered from their friendly neighbors of the Great White North only a mere twenty-eight hours away in Alberta. But whatever made them feel more comfortable with screaming belligerently at a grown-ass man making $8.25 an hour, he supposed.
With a groan and a crackle of cartilage in his back he stood up from leaning down on his counter, rolling his shoulders and allowing himself a heavy sigh. Eyes the color of the all-too-rarely clear Illinois sky fluttered open, glancing around at his spattering of customers looking just as miserable to be in this hellhole as he was. A woman was carefully picking items from the shelves, muttering to herself about the upcharge she had to endure but knowing she couldn't get those fuel points unless she bought that Advil here. A family of four crowded around the back freezer cases lined with a spectrum of over-sugared soda. He rolled his eyes to himself. No wait. Pop. How could he possibly forget all the times he'd been corrected by a corn-bred dweller of the fields of the 'proper' term for carbonated beverages? Either way, Coke and Pepsi were definitely different, despite the poor exasperated father telling them otherwise so they could hurry up and get back on the road to wherever they were headed.
No matter where the destination, it had the Midwest beat by a good twenty miles.
Kenny looked over as his coffee pourer stepped up to the counter, dropping a handful of creamer and sugar beside his cardboard insulated cup to fumble for his wallet. The cashier nodded sympathetically, "That kind of day?"
He laughed in three short huffs, black, thinning hair strewn asunder and sweat stains lining down the sides of his shirt. "Workin' since 'bout three AM." Kenny glanced over towards the digital clock beside his window, reading the blinking 4:56 and realizing in relief for a brief moment that his shift was only four minutes from completion. He shed his own joy and went back to typing in the man's coffee atop his touchscreen register.
"Man, I'm sorry. That's gotta be rough," he said in that practiced retail tone.
"Factories, Man. They tend to forget you're people." Kenny winced and nodded, remembering his own brief stint in a fiberglass facility back home before he'd packed up and moved out east. Thirteen hour days, no air conditioning, and a constant itch from particles that he could never shed, rashes that no amount of lotions could simmer down.
"Least the pay is usually decent?" he shrugged.
"Pay only covers so much," he smirked, dark eyes ringing with exhaustion. "Pack a' Camel Nines, too."
"Pink or green?" he asked as he turned about face towards his display of carefully arranged cigarette parcels. The most vibrant eye-catchers right at the average height line, the best way to convince someone not making eye contact with their cashier that yes, yes they did need that little smoky escape into nicotine dreams. A sneaky little system that Kenny was more than familiar with after trying to quit a good ten times before accepting that the marketing teams were just too damn good for him to defeat and going straight back to his Marlboros.
The man stifled a yawn, a croaking "regular" sneaking out under the expelling breath. Ken nodded, snatching up a black pack outlined with a vibrant magenta lingering towards the bottom of his shelves. Not nearly extravagant and popping enough to earn its place alongside its brethren of Silver Crushers. He swiped the barcode along his scanner, frowning at the glare of the fluorescents above slithering over the plastic-wrapped UPC and blocking a clear reading. He sighed irritably, moving his free hand to shade the box and trying again, nodding stoutly at the telltale tone screaming from the device as it registered onto his screen. He glanced around the counter for missed items, giving him another smile.
"That all?" He got a nod, glancing at his screen yet again. "Gonna be $7.83." He almost shook his head, realizing that these two meager items were nearly worth an entire hour of dredging through this place of inhuman horrors he called work. He held out his hand and caught the Hamilton making way into his palm, the man attempting to drop three cents in along with it and they splashed atop the counter with a clatter.
The man winced, "Oh geez, I'm sorry."
"Hey, Man, don't be," Ken reassured him gently, snagging the coins from atop the counter and entering the amount into his register. "You've had a long night."
He laughed quietly, watching and taking a long sip of hazelnut brew as Kenny gathered his change. "Tell me about it." Kenny handed him back his $2.20, watching the man opt to just shove it and his wallet down into his hoodie pocket and snatch up his smokes with a grateful smile. "You have a nice day."
"You, too, get some sleep," he advised lightheartedly, getting another grin before the man turned to head out of the dungeon and into the streaming sunlight once more. He watched after him, lips quirking as his saving grace stepped around him in an awkward dance and came through the door, looking at Kenny with a deadened glaze to her eyes.
"I forgot I worked until ten minutes ago," she grumbled.
Kenny snorted, leaning back on the counter atop folded arms. "Well, maybe you should actually write down yer schedule like Tom tells ya to."
She pouted, stepping through the waist-high swinging door leading behind the counter and the freshly stocked impulse candy shelves gracing the front-face of the surface. "I thought I did but apparently I had my phone set to last week's schedule."
Ken slowly brought his hands out from under him, very dramatically letting his palms fall against each other time and again in an andante tempo, maintaining a smug, amused eye contact. "Good job, Jess. Want me to start writing them down for ya when it gets posted?"
She rolled her eyes, "Yeah, because you've never misread a shift."
"Once. And it was because the ink smudged," he reminded her dryly. "Either way, I'm outta here." He stood back upright and turned his cap backwards around his head, blonde bangs poking out above the adjustment strap. He quickly went onto his register's home screen, finding his log in/out key. Jess watched him with a sigh as he rapidly punched in his ID and password, hitting that beautiful red-lined button reading oh-so-loudly and proudly 'CLOCK OUT'. With a hum, he pressed it in, letting his finger linger for just a tad and relishing in the freedom that was automatically granted. Eyes sparkled as it accepted his leave, landing back on the home screen and letting Jess scooch him aside to clock herself in. Ken reached under the counter into their mini-fridge hiding in plain sight, snagging an Arizona tea and popping it onto the counter. "Check me out, will ya?"
"I would but you're not my type," she smirked. He snorted and shot her a teasing wink, reaching behind him and grabbing a pack of Marlboro Blacks, menthol and waiting just for him, tossing the box beside his drink and heading out the door back around the counter. Jess quickly scanned over his items as he snagged his wallet and debit card, tapping the plastic against his hand. She looked at him expectantly. "Card?"
"Oh, right," he shrugged sheepishly, snagging his employee rewards card from a cloth sleeve and flipping it over, letting her scan and smirking at the price dropping a whopping ten cents. "Damn, look at me go. I'm gonna save enough for that Porsche before I know it."
"Will you give me a ride to work when you get it?" she chuckled.
He shrugged, swiping his card and inputting his PIN as he shoved his card back into place and slipped the wallet back into his jeans pocket. "Maybe. Depends. You gonna goddamn know your schedule? I ain't gonna wait for ya forever in a car like that."
"Cruel," she smirked, glancing down and finishing up his transaction, both of them looking down at the printer spitting out his receipt tape. Kenny shook his head, the eight-inch paper trail covered with so many promotional shout-outs that his two items were dwarfed within the listing. Jess ripped it out of its hold and held it out, Ken snatching it and his smokes and shoving them both into his pocket with his wallet. "See ya Thursday."
"Oh, you can keep track of mine, but-"
"Drop it, McCormick," she warned, Kenny cackling as he popped the tab on his sweet tea and tipped it towards her in salute.
"All right, all right. I'll see ya then," he nodded, turning on his heel and shoving his shoulder against the door. He stepped out into the sunshine and shook his head, the bright day misleading with the appearance of a sweltering day, finding himself in no more than sixty degrees. He let out a soft 'hmph' before making way to the side of the station, glancing up to the building lingering in the distance and letting out a sigh. Not a long journey home, only around five minutes of walking in fact and one of the primary reasons he'd taken this ridiculously humiliating job. Didn't mean he had to enjoy the five-day-a-week trek back and forth.
A low rumble entered the airspace and he glanced up, annoyed per usual as a plane swooped down overhead. 'O'Hare or Midway?' he wondered. He supposed it didn't really matter, either way those poor people were doomed within a handful of minutes to land on the tarmac and head into the hustle and bustle of one of the airports, fighting to hit connecting flights or just trying to navigate the overwhelming baggage claim. Kenny had only been in one of them once, he and his roommate going back home for the holidays two years prior. It'd been a mess, Kenny looking through Midway in awe, dumbfounded by the war memorials scattered about, overwhelmingly paranoid of the SBD Dauntless Dive-Bomber hanging so precariously at the threshold of concourse A. Craig had had to drag him away from reading about the air battles, Kenny morbidly fascinated by the details, confused by the notion that an airport in Chicago was memorializing a portion of WWII taking place at the Midway Atoll. But then again history had never exactly been Kenny's strong suit to begin with, so he just let himself gape in admiration at the various statues littering the lounges. After Craig yelled at him to get his ass moving so they wouldn't miss their flight, it'd just been a race to beat their way through the clusterfuck of fellow patrons and get to their terminal so they could get into Denver and pretend that nothing had changed in the years that they'd been gone.
But Kenny knew better. Everything was different from when they finally got the hell out when they were twenty-three. People and places from where they'd left continued pressing on without them, shifting with the tide and destroying the notion that they had held an iota of significance despite their humble roots being so deeply planted in that Colorado soil. But, Kenny surmised, maybe they were being punished for how they'd abandoned their home at the drop of a hat. They'd packed right up and drove Kenny's old truck the fifteen hours from home to the outskirts of Chicago, getting into town and realizing right away that they were far outside their comfort zone. The world was different looking at it through fields of soybean with a skyline lingering in the background, not a mountain in sight. It was almost overwhelming, as though for the first time, Kenny found that the world was just too big. There was no cluster, he didn't have ranges painting the sky keeping him in their proverbial box. No, now it was just flat. Flat with an occasional rise of a manmade structure.
After three years, Kenny still didn't know how he felt about where he was. Sure, there was room to breathe, he and Craig making sure to keep themselves out of the heart of the city so they could skip the ridiculous downtown rent and avoid the perilous Southside at all costs… But living on what locals considered the outskirts wasn't exactly a picnic either. It was still an hour and ten minutes by train ride to get into the city, still considered close enough to hike up the price of apartments. It wasn't exactly surprising; they were close to one of the biggest attractions in the Midwest. Where else were people gonna go? Detroit?
But even in a town like he and Craig found themselves in, a deep, deep part of him couldn't help but miss where he'd come from. He knew all his neighbors back in Colorado. Here? Here he avoided anyone that he could manage, a natural skepticism of possible violent agendas keeping him from making a full-on outreach to other renters within their apartment complex. Craig told him that the city changed him, made a boy who was previously a social chameleon into a step above a recluse. The statement was ridiculous considering Kenny had only been to the city maybe on ten occasions in his time living so nearby, every single one of them Tinder dates that refused to do anything but party it up and 'show him a good time'.
How taking bus upon bus and dealing with homeless people panhandling at the train station was 'a good time', Ken would never know. Maybe he just didn't understand the all-too-strange culture of the farm-raised heathens he'd grown up making fun of. Perhaps they considered their offbeat greetings to every ten people they passed to be part of their Midwestern charms.
Whatever it was, Kenny was just not impressed.
He took long, slurping gulp of his sweet tea, licking the sugar off of his lips and humming to himself from the burst of flavor. At least he had it to be on his side. Its purpose was to be bought and devoured, it'd never have to see the light of day again and face the reality that there were people around who called others crazy for not knowing a damn thing resting within the Windy City. Lucky goddamn tea.
He made his way up towards the back of his apartment building, hitting the winding sidewalk running along the front side and turning on his toes, scuffed shoes procuring a grating groan from the cement beneath him as he pivoted. Down the row he strode, edging closer and closer to the midline of the complex and sighing. Craig and he had fought to get in here, both of them lacking a damn bit of a suitable credit score. It was the one time in their lives that Craig was suitably not judgmental, verbally at least, as Kenny laid down his homegrown charms to the leaser. It'd taken three days of living in a motel and two times of Ken going out and 'taking one for the team' as he put it before they found themselves wound up in a discounted lease and conveniently in the home closest to the laundry facilities.
Kenny claimed it was because his dick held magical power, Craig was more than certain that it was just because no one else was willing to fuck someone who ended up screwing people over on their own in the end anyway. Either way, it was livable. Craig could commute to school while his parents sent them money to survive and Ken could snag a job nearby to do all he could to assist them. It was suitable. Not fantastic, but suitable.
Ken made his way up towards the last building on the right complex, snagging his keys out of his back pocket and shoving open the lobby door. He nodded to the grumpy old man sitting behind his glass window at the visitor's booth, getting another nod back before his attention was turned back to the book in front of him. Kenny shook his head. He could swear the man had been reading the same worn-down novel the entire time he'd lived here. To each their own, he supposed. He began tromping up the thinly carpeted steps, careful to not let his tea can slosh his cheap treat all over and find himself with an all-knowing custodian glaring at him next time they crossed paths.
Popping his lips, he hit the landing and made way to the room residing in the left-hand corner, nestled comfortably above and below nothing, and a blissfully vacant apartment beside them. Room number twenty-eight, P.O. box to match. His key slipped into the lock, pressing up pins and activating the tumbler as he twisted. The knob turned with him, Ken twisting to his side to nudge the door askew with his arm, placing a foot into the barrier and sliding his key back out and depositing it smoothly into the old ashtray beside the doorframe. No need for more than one to be used for smoking, Craig had claimed. Would be a waste of money to buy a fucking bowl or key hook. Not that Kenny disagreed but the fact that it was his ashtray no longer being utilized for what he considered the greater good was never one he looked upon easily.
He slipped into the living room and kicked the door shut behind him, assaulted at once with the scent of stale tobacco and wafting marijuana residuals. He'd been paranoid to shit about their habits getting them booted right the fuck out, that notion disappearing when a knock from their landlord had come during a session, both of them waiting to be booked before being asked to hook the old man up with their dealer's number. It was free-game in this complex, Kenny's 'favorite lil leaser' recognizing right off just what kind of tenants they would be and sticking them in what was known throughout the other buildings as the Smokehouse.
Blue eyes swiftly landed on a lounging figure on the couch, MacBook on lap and a cup of hot tea steaming from their Wal-Mart coffee table. "You're home early," he commented, ripping his cap off and tossing it beside their key holder, making way to plop down on the disc chair adjacent to the sofa.
Craig let out a dry noise of acknowledgement, fingers typing away and grey eyes flickering with the light of his word document. Finally, the clacking keys came to a halt as he reached the end of his sentence, constant bored expression slipping upwards to meet the stare of the expectant blonde across the way. "Lecture was cancelled, Holloway is in a conference."
Kenny looked up in thought, running through the vague list of professor names Craig had graced him with sharing. It was an honor to know as much as he did, really. Craig was so standoffish regarding, well, everything. "That's your… color correction prof, right?"
He gave a simple nod, turning his attention back to his work and letting out a long breath through his nose, tucking a loose strand of waved black hair back under his cobalt chullo. "Works for me, I have this bullshit to focus on."
Ken rolled his shoulders, reaching down to snag his new cigarettes from his pocket and blatantly ignoring his receipt falling to the floor, knowing well enough that spare piece of paper would drive Craig absolutely insane within twenty minutes. He set his Arizona atop the table and began ripping off plastic wrap, flipping open the top hatch and tearing off foil covering. "Whatcha workin' on? Paper again?"
"Script," he replied tiredly, a hand coming up and rubbing at his eye. He glanced at Kenny pulling out his cancer stick, all at once the sickness of a good three hours of nicotine withdrawal slamming into him. He sighed irritably, grasping at his own pack hiding in the confines of his hoodie pocket, catching up to Kenny's lingering pace. Craig's fingers trailed within his pocket, finding the smooth outline of his lighter and pulling it out, the plastic black covering gleaming in their overhead light. He smoothly lit up, catching Ken's expectant, pleading expression as his hands searched his own pockets. Craig scoffed, tossing him the lighter and watching Kenny eagerly joining his smoky excursion. "Keep better track of your shit."
"Look, sometimes they fall outta my pocket when I'm restockin', it happens," he pouted, teeth lightly clenching around his filter as he slid the lighter back across the table. He allowed himself a deep inhale, a minted kick tickling the back of his throat before letting it all seep back out between his teeth, slumping at once with the allowance of relaxation to take him at long last. He glanced back over to Craig's lazy positioning, giving him a small smirk, "Still with the script, huh?"
"It's an ongoing process," he said with an eye roll. "You can't write a story in a week."
"It's just talkin', ain't it?"
Craig frowned, eyes narrowing in the slightest. "It's not just dialogue. It's screen directions, too. And actor directions. It's a page per minute of film."
"All right, Kubrick, calm your shit," he held up his hand defensively, a small smirk quirking on the edge of his lips. There were oh-so-few things that got Craig uppity and defensive, insinuating that he was going to school just to learn how to shoot YouTube vlogs was definitely one of them.
Kenny always knew Craig would end up in the field he was striving for, since gaining popularity as a school-news cinematographer way back in their elementary years. For over a decade he told him that's what he should do, that it was the major he should be aiming for. Craig adamantly denied that, stubborn streak just refusing to let Kenny McCormick 'dictate his life' as he'd put it. But, before he knew it, he'd found himself enthralled with life behind the camera yet again, begrudgingly applying for program upon program before landing himself a spot at DePaul. Kenny had been at his house when he'd received the acceptance letter, looking up to find that smarmy grin all over his friend's face and telling him to drop it before he dropped him.
Kenny was more than thrilled when Craig offered for him to tag along, both of them wanting to get out of their humdrum life. Besides, Craig needed the additional income. His parents could only send him so much extra pocket change for being their beloved homosexual son. His life had turned into an hour-long commute both ways three days a week, coming home usually to find Kenny playing video games and enduring a ridiculous amount of teasing from the blonde. If he had to hear about how his BFA stood for 'big fucking asshole' one more goddamn time, he'd just live in a box outside his university as he hid from homicide charges.
"So. What's the script about?" Kenny asked casually, leaning forward and ashing into the tray in the middle of the table.
"None of your goddamn business."
He pouted, blue eyes developing an instant sheen that Craig was less than amused with. He'd gotten way too proficient at that for being a grown man. "Craaaiiiig," he whined. "I wanna knoooowwww."
"And I want you to shower more often, but I guess we can't always get what we ask for," he countered, taking another drag of his own.
Kenny frowned, "C'monnnnn I'm your best bud you gotta tell me."
"Oh, I didn't realize you were Clyde Donovan. Clyde, you've changed so much. What happened to you how did you get so much uglier?" he asked flatly.
"Fucking rude," he scoffed. "Come on, Man. If I gotta deal with you typin' all the time, then you should share with the class."
Craig rolled his eyes and let out a long, irritated sigh. Why oh why couldn't Kenny have picked up a couple extra hours tonight? "It's a guy and his dog and cat. They're goddamn homeless and trying to figure shit out."
"Is it like Homeward Bound? Do the animals talk? Is the cat voiced by Sally Field?" Craig looked at him wryly and he shrugged. "These are the questions that matter, Tucker I'm just making sure you have your angles covered."
He shook his head and ashed into a nearly empty Coke can beside of him, hearing the falling ash sizzling out in the remainder of flat soda. "No. Just a guy trying to get them into a place to live."
"That sounds boring," he cocked his brow. "Why are there more animals stars than human?"
"Because animals don't fucking question my creative choices," he bit. "And they're easier to work with if you find one that's trained."
He looked at him warily, taking another sip of his sweet tea, "Don't you need like… a license to film with animals?"
"If I was making a goddamn Hollywood production, yes," he rolled his eyes. "This is a collaborative project with three other people. One has a dog, another has a cat that're both trained. We'll make it work."
"I'm gonna guess it was your idea to work with animals," he smirked. "Since people repulse you so much."
"They don't repulse, they annoy," he argued. "Like a certain asshole roommate."
Kenny placed his hand over his chest and sniffled, "Hurtful. I do nothing but shower you with love and attention and all I get from you is attitude."
"I'd rather have the loving touch of syphilis than you."
"Wow."
Craig shook his head at the moping just overtaking the rest of Kenny's features, letting out a long breath before indulging in another inhale of his cigarette. His nose crinkled at the scent of Kenny's menthol filling the room even above his direct source, unable to tolerate the mint sensation for much more than a secondhand experience. He pulled back and blew the residual smoke not trapped in his lungs off to the side. He hated what was about to come next, but he knew he had little to no option otherwise. He rolled his tongue forward, swiping the back of his front teeth as they kept gazes. "Do you work Friday?"
Kenny looked up in thought before shaking his head. "Nah, I work Saturday."
"I need someone to help me get stuff to school."
Ken frowned, face scrunching at the notion of being stuck on that goddamn train for an hour. "Dude what the fuck am I supposed to do while you're in class?"
Craig raised his brow, "It's fucking Chicago. There's plenty for you to do. Just go fucking exploring."
"Exploring ain't exactly my thing," he scoffed. "With my luck I'll look in a store window and someone will burst out and stab me with the glass to take my wallet."
"You're not worth being stabbed. You look like a homeless guy so they'll assume you've got nothing."
"Wow. Thanks," he sneered, taking another puff and letting the smoke seep through his nostrils. "Why do you need me, you never ask for my help."
Craig sighed irritably, "Because I need to take my computer, my backpack, my camera, and a fucking foamboard for some organizational shit for my group. I can't carry all that shit onto the train myself."
Kenny leaned his head back and groaned, shifting uncomfortably in the worn fabric of his thrift-store chair. God. Spending the hours of Craig's lectures wandering around the city sounded like Hell on Earth. Kenny just wasn't built for that life, unable to decipher if the people walking the sidewalk with him were pretentious, high-class fucks for their income levels or nothing more than Midwestern hicks who thought they had it good. But, he also knew Craig. Knew him well enough to know that he only would ask for Kenny's help if he really needed it. "Only if you give me money for lunch."
Craig slid his free hand up under his chullo flap and rubbed at his temple in aggravation. He should've figured. "Fine. Whatever." He snuffed out his cigarette and repositioned his MacBook atop his legs. "We leave at eight."
Kenny groaned louder, flopping in his chair dramatically. There was a reason he always aimed for afternoon shifts. "You owe me breakfast, too, then."
"Fucking fine," he snapped. "Stop your goddamn bitching already, Jesus Christ."
Ken glared at him, reaching forward and snagging the television remote and his PS3 controller. "Fine. You go back to your fucking furry fantasy script, then." Craig glared at him darkly before redirecting his focus, opting to tune out the blonde moron he was so unlucky to be stuck with to get back into his artistic zone. Kenny clenched his dwindling cigarette in his teeth, twisting in his seat as he watched the Playstation logo taking hold of their screen, turning down the volume. A kindness for a man who was going to make his life goddamn miserable in three days. Kenny took another drag, grumbling under his breath.
Whatever, he supposed. It beat stocking pop.