Chapter Two: No One Takes Change Well
Jarod moaned and opened his eyes.
All he could see in the dark room were a few blurry shapes that seemed to advance and retreat in cycles. Like the moon. But no moonlight entered here.
Slowly, so as to provoke a headache, Jarod looked around himself. In a strange place and time, he was only somewhat surprised to find himself cuffed hand and foot. He tried to remember who had done this to him but his mind rebelled. Jarod tried again to cause that memory to resurface, but his headache got worse, so he left it at that.
When the pain subsided, Jarod attempted to stand up. The floor decided then was a good time to go through a fiendishly complicated loop-de-loop, and Jarod fell.
Deciding nothing productive was going to come out of his efforts to make sense of anything around him, Jarod arranged himself in a fetal position on the floor and covered himself with the blanket he woke up with but couldn't remember every having.
The genius closed his eyes and drifted off much too rapidly for him to notice that he had done so much more quickly than usual.
Miss Parker had had a very good night's sleep. Even with the assumption that Mr. Lyle wouldn't attempt his bid for power anytime soon, the future still looked remarkably inviting. She, for one, would not underestimate Jarod.
Miss Parker turned to face the alarm clock on the dresser to the left of her bed and turned it off before its incessant chirping could possibly ruin her day. Then she sprang out of bed and made her way to Jarod's room, which was near the back of the house. She half-expected some witty remark from the captive within. Instead, she found him still huddled under his blanket, apparently asleep. Miss Parker scowled at him and muttered, "Sixteen hours of sleep! You think he'd be awake by now."
The door closed with a small click as Miss Parker left to finish waking up and she did it quickly. Soon, there was the sound of a percolator grinding coffee as well as the rustling of a plastic bag followed by the sound of cereal being poured into a bowl coming from the kitchen.
In a little while, Miss Parker emerged from the kitchen with a cup of coffee she occasionally took a sip from in her left hand and the bowl of cereal in her right. She set the cup on a table on the way to Jarod's room so that she would have one hand free to open his door. For the second time that morning, the door opened.
Jarod was on the floor finishing his stretches, and only when he finished did he look up at Miss Parker. With a smile he ignored the irritation she saw in her face and, referring to the bowl of cereal, asked, "I get room service for free?" He stood up.
Ignoring the question, Miss Parker offered the bowl. "Here. Eat this."
Peering into the bowl, Jarod watched a single cornflake sink slowly as the milk pulled it under. "Cornflakes?" He looked at Miss Parker, who did not look like a cornflakes kind of person at the moment. "I didn't order this."
Scowling, Miss Parker stared at him. "You didn't order anything. Just be glad that I brought you anything at all."
Jarod took the bowl and sat down. While he attempted to find the sunken cornflake, Miss Parker began to leave. Before she closed the door, however, he asked her a question: "Where are you going?"
Miss Parker turned around to find Jarod still poking at his cereal. In a matter-of-fact tone, she replied, "The Centre. It's where I work."
Jarod looked up, perplexed. "I thought your job was to catch me."
Giving him her infamously cold smile, Miss Parker gazed at Jarod. "I didn't say it wasn't."
"But ... I ..."
Miss Parker's smile grew wider: she delighted in his confusion. "Don't worry," she nearly sneered. "You wouldn't understand anyway."
Jarod watched her as she closed the door and waited until he could no longer hear her six-inch heels make their way out the door before he resumed looking for the lost cornflake. Presently, he realized that the whole bowl of cereal was getting soggy and spooned some into his mouth. When Jarod was done, he tested the chain and marked the end of the radius that measured his circle of domain with the empty bowl.
Returning to the secured end of the chain, Jarod rifled through his belongings. Miss Parker hadn't confiscated anything but his cell phone, red notebook, and unfinished picture, not even his money. Her current behavior struck Jarod as strange: Never before had she taken the time to neither keep him nor collect his things. An encounter with Miss Parker meant one thing: she'd bought him a one way ticket to The Centre. The fact that he usually made it a return trip seemed to aggravate her.
As Jarod dug through his various identification cards, he found he could not remember how Miss Parker caught him in the first place. He stopped and visited his last memory of the previous day.
Jarod is driving a dark navy blue Corvette. He muses that it is the kind of car one might "pick up chicks" in, but he has no idea why someone would want to drive baby chickens around in a car. They'd mess up the upholstery and they smell funny.
Unfortunately, the car is a gas guzzler. Alone on the open road, Jarod is thankful when he sees a lonely green sign with white letters that read "Bishopville, Maryland. Population: 243. 20 mi." He accelerates from 60 mph to 100 mph in a couple of seconds. It causes him no anxiety. He was a racecar driver once. And should he run out of gas anytime soon, the velocity of the vehicle will keep him going for quite some time before he has to go out and push.
Jarod arrives at the gas station at breakneck speed and nonchalantly refills his car. He studies the city around him. It appears that the small town has not followed the rest of the world into World War II and beyond. The streets are more accurately called roads and many of the houses need paint.
The nozzle of the hose makes a choking noise; it is done. Jarod retrieves the pump and puts it away. Then he goes to retrieve his change from the man running the gas station.
One of the more modern aspects of the gas station is the fact that it is also a convenience store. A bag marked with orange stripes across the top and a single red one across the bottom attracts Jarod's attention. Jarod picks up the bag and looks at the contents, which can be seen because of the way the bag is designed. The label is written in white and he reads it aloud: "Fritos Brand Scoops! Great for dipping. Corn chips. Hmmm." Turning the bag over, he is amused by the statement at the bottom, which he also reads aloud, softly to himself: "I know what I like and I like FRITOS Scoops! Corn chips."
Jarod approaches the cashier, a heavy man whose eyes and demeanor seem carefully practiced to reflect the energy of the city around him. "Can I buy this bag of Fritos?" he asks as he pushes a five dollar bill across the counter.
The man takes the five and holds it up the light, his suspicion piqued by the crispness of the bill. Abraham Lincoln and the security tape stare back at him, so he places it in the register. He takes out three worn dollar bills, two dimes, and four pennies and places them in Jarod's hand. "Chips," he says, "are three dollars and the gas was eighteen seventy-six."
Jarod slips the change into his pocket and takes the bag of Fritos. "One more thing," Jarod says, memory provoked by the chips. "The words on the back of this bag of chips imply that they'd be much more enjoyable with dip. Do you sell any here?"
The man shakes his head once, as if the motion saps much of his energy. "No, we don't," he says simply and in a monotone.
"Oh," Jarod says, just a little bit of disappointment creeping into his voice. He looks up and smiles. "Thank you anyway. Have a nice day."
The man does no return the farewell but simply nods once.
Jarod exits the convenient gas station store, which is what he likes to call gas station/convenient stores. As he walks toward the car, he opens the bag of chips and samples one. Delight spreads across his face as he remarks to no one in particular, "Mmm! These are good!"
He hears the sound of rapid footsteps – someone is running towards him and he turns around. Out of the corner of his eye, Jarod can see the man from the cashier watching him. In Jarod's immediate domain, however, is the man who was chasing him. He is what people would call a "white man." He has dark brown eyes and hair, a very Roman nose, is clean shaven, and currently looks somewhat flustered. After he catches his breath, he says to Jarod, in a heavy Brooklyn accent, "'Ey, buddy." He indicates an area over his left shoulder with his right thumb. "Ya drop'd somethin'."
Jarod's gaze moves from the man's face to the area shown to him. The man moves out the way and to Jarod's side. "Really?" he says, sounding surprised and slightly confused. "I don't think I – aarrgh!" Jarod yells as the man stabs a syringe into his neck and gives Jarod all of its contents.
Jarod turns around and sees the cuffs in the man's hand as his legs buckle and he falls. He is out before he hits the ground.
"Ow." Jarod rubbed the part of his neck the syringe had penetrated. To fill the silence, he spoke aloud to himself.
"There must have been a tracking system on my car. That would explain the man's appearance after mine. But why would he contact Miss Parker, if, as I assume, he would be eating out of Lyle's pocket?"
Jarod stared at the carpeted floor, which humbly and silently stated the opinion that it didn't care.
Bored of talking to himself, Jarod explored every inch of floor space the chain allowed him to visit, including the closet, where he assumed the blanket came from, and the bathroom.
The shelves of this closet (Jarod assumed Miss Parker had one in her bedroom as well) were made of a dark wood and were bare, save for a few extra towels and small blankets. In the side of the closet opposite the door, he could see the various gifts he had sent her over the years: her mother's music box with the two ballerina figurines, his book, The Saddest Little Valentine, his stain glass rendition of her ... and wondered why she had kept them.
The bathroom was cold and white. The floor was tiled, and a little beige rug in the middle of the floor was the only warm place in the room. Unlike the closet, Jarod was able to reach all areas of the bathroom. But there was nothing to see.
Exiting the bathroom, Jarod remarked, "Not a homey place," and arranged his belongings in a neat pile near the corner of the room farthest from the door. He opened the aluminum Halliburton case and chose a DSA at random sliding it into the drive. Jarod's gaze turned to the screen, where he saw a teenage image of himself sitting alone and assembling a small motorboat. Jarod retrieved a PEZ dispenser from his sack of belongings and returned to watch himself on the screen.
The young Jarod looked at the pieces on the table and looked slightly frustrated. "Sydney!" he called.
"Jarod, what's wrong?" Sydney asked once he arrived.
"There are no straight metal pieces! There are only spiral or coil springs!" The young Jarod picked up an example and dropped it in exasperation.
"Perhaps the springs can be ... bent?" Sydney suggested, using the dropped one as an example. His protégé smiled sheepishly.
Jarod pulled the head of the dispenser and listened to the spring inside the stem snap the head back into place.