Author's Note:
So, I'm back with another chapter. You can thank Th Ghst f Slss Frnc for parts of Abby's bit. And, yeah, I do know Abby and Jackson never met previously. Sorry...but I'm taking a poetic license with this one, trust me.
Oh, and by the way, I probably should change the summary...since it didn't really cover all I plan to do. Each character is getting a face-lift. But don't worry; it won't look like those god-awful "pimped" cars that used to be across the street from me. I mean, you don't really need to have bullet holes in your car and flames down the sides. You just don't. Your cars also don't need to have the ability to "hop". Spend the money on food, please!
Sorry, I got carried away. Oh, and to one reviewer: yes, Jackson will be with Melissa eventually (read: yes, they will snog), since they match well enough, I suppose. I would put Jackson with Abby, since they fit better, but whatever.
What? Opposites attract. Jackson is mellow and Abby is...not.
Melissa is mellow and weepy and Jackson is mellow and weepy. They're like those 40-year-olds that get divorces!
No?
Well, I'm a bad judge. That's why Th Ghst f Slss Frnc is here since she's much better with relationship drama and the rules of attraction, since personally I'm a dark drama type and you all look like Pollock's paintings to me. –Squints-
By the way, if you notice "stars" or empty spots, Casper informed me she wouldn't beta if I had a "potty mouth". ...Sorry...?
Anyway, enjoy...just not too much...
Three: Cleopatra
/Abby/ (One Month before the Trip)
She was sitting in a tiny office, surrounded by five other gray plastic chairs, a potted plant, a water fountain, and the door to a single stall bathroom. She had her ear-buds in and was listening to music, mindlessly.
She was watching as her mother, a clearly more Japanese woman, flirted openly with a mechanic.
Ugh. He's not even good looking!
She rolled her eyes and just flicked the screen of her iPod, turning on Regina Spektor's Blue Lips. It was a pathetic, sad song and she might as well.
She liked to listen to music that matched her mood and right now she needed to side with pathetic and angsty rather than violent. As in violent enough to use her martial arts skill from when she was younger on that guy's face...
Her Mom then returned; doing that funny walk she did when she wanted some guy to stare at her "derrière". (Her mother hated swearing.)
I formally pledge to never act like a...
"Abby! Come on, let's go! Big Jay just said our car is fine. Turns out that ticking sound we heard in the engine was just a bracelet. Imagine that?"
Abby sighed and stood up.
I bet she's already curious about his nickname... I bet there's just a Little Jay around here. I also bet they're both rappers or druggies or something like that...
She bumped into someone as she walked past. She glanced over and saw a guy, looking kind of scared.
"Oh! Sorry!" he exclaimed, backing up. His voice was deeper than the other guy's and he seemed closer to her age. He was a blond, though.
Odd...what's he doing down here? Everyone knows...
"It's okay, you didn't mean to and I wasn't watching where I was going," she just said, shrugging her shoulders while mentally burying the thought. She got enough trouble for being Asian; she didn't need to think like that.
Maybe that was just something that happened near the Bronx?
She'd traveled a lot, following her Dad with work. She'd seen some neighborhoods so divided by race that people could be shot there, without doing something, just because of their skin color.
Of course, this wasn't New York. And she'd been in California for enough years to realize everything worked differently in a state that had a supposed one-fourth ratio of insane to sane.
"I'm still sorry, is there anything I can do for you, anyway?" the guy asked, crossing his arms.
Why is he defensive?
"No, not really," she said quickly, beginning to walk to her Mom again.
"Come on, buddy!" the guy named Big Jay yelled from somewhere unseen. "We have an old 1980 Pinto just in."
The blond rolled his eyes. "...A Pinto? ...Seriously?"
Abby blinked at him, not getting it. He jumped into explanation.
"A Pinto was a type of 70s through 80s car; a station wagon type car. Ugly..."
She nodded, still not quite getting it. She had a fleeting thought of a hippie-era van, but that wouldn't be it.
"Bye," she said, mumbling, then hurried over to her Mom.
Her Mom turned out to be standing at the door, looking annoyed. Her right foot was tapping.
"What?" Abby questioned, not getting it.
"Don't you be getting any ideas, young lady," her Mom said.
She blinked. "Pardon...?"
"That guy," her Mom said distastefully while pointing openly at the kid, "looks like trouble. Didn't you seem him? All dark clothes and..."
Abby sighed, not wanting to deal with this. "I'm not going to date him. We just shared a few words."
"Phone numbers?"
"No! Jeez! I'm not like that."
"Fine, but..."
Abby just walked towards the car. She didn't like being this way to the woman who was supposedly her Mom, but she was so frustrating! She didn't chase after anything that moved.
Not like her...
Her Mom followed her. "I'm just saying. It's okay if you liked him—he is pretty—but he's a mechanic."
Weren't you just flirting with a mechanic? And you're married!
"Pretty?" she asked dryly.
"You know what I mean! Let's just go..."
Thank goodness...
/Jackson/ (Two Weeks Previous)
Jackson sat on the curb, in front of a seemingly average bookstore, as he waited on Cattie. It had actually managed to take two weeks before they could see each other again.
Those weeks had been heck on earth.
His dad had been better, he could admit that, and he wasn't drinking. But that meant he was in pain which meant he was more worked up than normal.
Not much had changed there. He was still every bad word on the face of the earth, according to him. Luckily, he knew he didn't mean it.
His dad just didn't know how to talk anymore, unless he was cussing. It made him what to find the woman who was his Mom and shake some sense into her. Ask why she'd played him. Ruined him...
"Hey, Sulky, what's up?"
He looked up to spot Cattie, a sickly thin girl with ratty black hair and gray-blue eyes, which were hidden behind thick, unstylish glasses (which she wore just for kicks). She was also the nicest person he knew. You couldn't tell from her illness-wrecked appearance, but she was.
It was just a survival thing, after all.
"Hey," he said finally, standing up.
"Ready to go in?" she asked, smiling a little.
"Sure?" was all he could offer.
She could light up a room with that smile. It was too bad she couldn't find her a decent guy—as in, not him and in a boyfriend kind of way...or just another friend.
She glanced at him, then back at the bookstore. "Am I allowed to hug you?"
"No. I don't give or receive hugs. Stop asking."
He smirked a little. He could remember telling her the same thing when he was younger. ...Much, much younger... Now he was getting sentimental.
It was one of his happier memories, though. Elementary school hadn't been too bad, when he'd lived here. It had been a nice mix of people. Then all the richer, nicer families packed up and fled, realizing the town was crashing and burning.
Lucky b-...
"Fine," she said after she took in his appearance, ending her sentence with a dreary sigh as she pushed past him and entered the store. "Come on then, Slick. Let's go."
He rolled his eyes. He was already up to two nicknames today. She must be in a good mood.
Lucky her...
She opened the door for him (something she was always sure to do, since she wanted to be a gentlewoman), and the heavy glass thing swung closed behind them with a clang and a jingling of bells.
Overkill was a word to describe the shop's pointless security. Well, not pointless if you realized it wasn't a bookstore...foremost.
Harris, appearing out of nowhere as usual, limped over and clapped them both on the shoulder.
"Hello! And how are you today?" he asked, in his bright-and-chipper satire voice.
"Fine, H," Cattie commented, getting herself out of his embrace.
He was harmless. But filthy...very, very filthy...and smelly...
"Now, now, don't be calling me after a drug, ma'am, you're too sweet for that," Harris claimed, as he wandered into the "back room where books were stored"—in other words, where Cleopatra was.
"Slow down," Jackson commented, with a faint smile on his face.
Doubtless of his old wound, the man could still get around like a sprinter.
"Fine," Harris said, pouting as he waited by the normally locked door. "You're no fun, you young folk."
Cattie rolled her eyes as they both wandered over, skirting the heaps of old, dusty books that rested on tables all over the smaller half of the building, the store front half.
"Just do that fancy knock of yours, already, James Bond, and let us in. I need some wine, now."
"You're so classy," Jackson whispered to her.
Cattie rolled her eyes, again. "Children drink wine all over Europe. Little Catholic kids do, too! There's much worse I could be doing..."
"I know, I know, but you could be doing a lot better," he mumbled, shifting away when she leaned too close.
Cattie just smacked on her gum, ignoring him. Harris did his thing and soon they were both allowed in. Harris made his way past the thick velvet drapes that marked the entry way and disappearing into the dusky room beyond.
"Let's go," Cattie mumbled and toed past him, slipping through the cloth, too.
He sighed and just followed them in. It was true; a glass of wine a day was a much better vice than shooting yourself u...
Never mind.
He just didn't like thinking about it, or anything else. Not thinking was his new hobby. Especially since Marcus had started looking for him again...
Stop thinking about it, idiot! What were you just indorsing? Not thinking!
His eyes took a while to adjust to the darkness as he just decided to race through the border, like an even bigger idiot. He stumbled into someone, who cussed at him. He winced and wandered away a bit.
He felt a familiar hand on his arm, talons included, and Cattie pulled him farther in, to the bar set up in the back. It was your average hole-in-the-wall liquor place, except it wasn't.
Ebony statues of Greek-looking women marked the border. More and more books, newer ones, were stacked increasingly throughout the place. The lighting came from a single red bulb up near the bar. Everything smelled like smoke.
It was his heaven, now—once again. The only safe place he could escape to. It had started as a place for a few veterans to meet, to swap drinks and talk about their time in Vietnam. Then, all but one died, one after another. Now it belonged to the remaining one's son, Mitch.
Mitch was part boss and part bouncer and nobody he didn't like were allowed close to the space. You weren't supposed to tell friends, either. If Mitch didn't know you, you weren't welcome. He was one of the few exceptions, since Cattie had brought him here for a drink.
He didn't drink, but he'd come anyway.
Mitch had thrown a bottle at his head.
Luckily, things had calmed down shortly after that. Everyone involved (and in the tiny room) could thank Cattie for that.
It wasn't surprising that Mitch was paranoid, however, so he didn't hold a grudge.
The neighborhood near here was all the sudden full of crazy don't-eat-meat, we-want-to-hug-murders and wild-borne, feral children (as far as he could tell) who didn't realize that the poor, oppressed neighbors of theirs would steal anything they left out.
After they figured that out, they hadn't been as friendly with their charity cases.
They were also quite rich, which meant more and more cops patrolled these parts now (according to Cattie).
And, quite frankly, what Mitch did was illegal. It was a crime. No one thought of it like that, though. It didn't hurt anyone and whoever wanted their poison could always get it someplace else, too.
Of course, what was right and wrong was seen in so many views...
Theirs was focused on what it took to survive. Murder, attacking innocents or the unarmed, abusing somebody who you were supposed to love, hurting kids or animals—those were all things he thought was wrong.
This wasn't.
Of course, he didn't make the laws.
Funny how this place used to be lawless...
And it's hilarious that in Oakland now they won't come if somebody robs you. It's spreading like an effing virus...
The Second Law of Thermodynamics seemed to apply to people every so often. There was a mess of cruelty and violence in Rome at one point and it seemed like they were heading right for another wave of that. He could almost feel it in his bones.
Of course, now he was just being dramatic. He'd had a bad feeling recently, though. Maybe it was his Dad making him feel depressed?
It was tough living with a not-medically-inclined-and-a-little-overweight Dr. House, who doesn't seem to eat.
"Slick...what's with the brooding look? It doesn't look good on you," Cattie commented, as she yanked on his hand, trying to lead him over to the bar.
He shrugged, as best he could, as she hopped up onto a bar stool. Mitch gave them a nod, and then went about getting her normal drink.
"I don't know," he responded quietly. "Just thinking," he grumbled in disgust.
Why can't I just stop today? Every time I stop thinking about one thing, I think of another...
"Well then, stop thinking."
"I'd have to kill myself."
"Okay...then keep thinking."
"We have an agreement then?"
Cattie giggled and knocked back a glass; which looked like a shot glass, rather than those delicate wine glasses. He cringed.
"Yup...wanna shake on it?" she asked, licking her lips.
"No. You're disgusting. You bathe like, what, once a week?"
She laughed again, turning a few heads.
He just thought about how needed to get out of here...this whole city. Just settle down in some Midwestern town, working as a mechanic...or something. Just out of L.A...
He couldn't handle this scene anymore. It was making him sick.
"Cattie, I have to go soon," he said, lying through his teeth. "Can we just catch up, outside? I can't hear you over this music..."
"But Muse is awesome!" Cattie complained, but she put down her glass and stood up.
We both need to get out of here...
A/N: So, this wasn't much. Sorry. I figured since this was about halfway to 5,000 words, I should stop, and continue with Part Two (Chapter Four: Blue Veins) next chapter. I hope you don't mind, but if you do mind, tell me nicely.
Anyway, review if you are to this point. If you don't, it might take me much longer for the next half of this to be posted. And who would want that?
...Don't answer that.
But, anyway, next time you should get to know Jackson's Dad a little better, get to know Cattie a little better, and learn how Jackson even got mixed up in gangs—because, that always made me curious. I've seen "gangs" since I was eight hanging around like clumps of idiots. I never had anything to do with them. Anybody with half a brain has nothing to do with them, especially "anti-hero" types like Jackson. So, I try to explain how it could be possible.
Oh, and I'll give you three guesses why I can post this at eleven a.m.