A/N: The title of this song comes from a Moody Blues song which is referenced throughout the chapter. I had a couple of lines of lyrics included in the text, but have since removed them.

Chapter Five: Your Wildest Dreams

"You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another."
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

Sunday, March 27, 1988
Chicago, Illinois

"Thanks. Have a good night."

Bender nodded and watched the car pull away from the booth, its brake lights flashing red for an instant as the driver stopped at the end of the driveway to check for oncoming traffic. After a couple of seconds, the car pulled out onto the road and drove away. Bender settled back onto his stool and stared out across the parking garage at the rows of spaces that had been full not thirty minutes before. There were only a few cars left at 12:15 A.M., which meant that he'd be able to go home soon.

Another car pulled up to his booth with the windows rolled down and 'Your Wildest Dreams' by the Moody Blues blaring from the speakers. Bender sighed and stood from the stool as the driver, a small, balding man with wire-rimmed glasses, held out a five dollar bill.

"Do you have your ticket?"

The man stared back at him blankly for a second, then said, "Oh, right." He pulled out his wallet and started searching through the pockets. Bender stood there as patiently as he could, fighting the urge to just let the man leave, if only so that he wouldn't have to listen to that horrible song.

"I know it's in here somewhere."

Bender nodded and rubbed his hands together under the metal counter. It was damn cold in Chicago during the winter, especially at night, and the glass cage they called a ticket booth did virtually nothing to keep the cold out. Bender wished they would let him smoke, at least during the slow periods when no one was coming in or out of the garage, but the best he could do was a ski cap and a pair of gloves.

"Is this the right one?"

Bender glanced over at the bald man, who was holding up a pale blue ticket for Bender to inspect. Bender shook his head. "No, sir. It's red."

The man sighed and continued his search. Without meaning to, Bender began tapping his foot along with the song playing, growling softly when he realized what he was doing. He hated the Moody Blues, not only because they were a crappy band, but also because their songs got stuck in his head whether he wanted them to or not.

"This one?" The man held up a small red ticket and Bender nodded, accepting it and the five dollar bill.

"Good night."

The man waved and drove away from the booth, his taillights blinking goodbye as he left. Bender could still hear the radio blasting, even when the car pulled out onto the street and drove off into he night.

He was going to have that song stuck in his head for the rest of the night.

About twenty minutes and six cars later, Bender's boss came out to the ticket booth and told him to go home. Bender watched him check the money, then stepped out of the booth and into the garage.

The first thing he did when he got out onto the street was pull out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. He stood there on the sidewalk for a moment, lighting a stick and taking a few drags. After a couple of minutes, he stuffed the pack into his pocket and started walking down the street.

Bender had only lived in Chicago for about three years, but he still had a hard time remembering what it was like to live anywhere else. Even Shermer seemed like a distant memory at times, mostly because he hardly ever went out there anymore. When he did, it was only to visit his old roommate C.J. and some of his friends from the neighborhood. He never went back to his parents' house, or even considered it. The last time he saw either of them was sometime in October of 1984. He'd walked into the living room with a duffel bag over one shoulder and a pillow stuffed under one arm. His mother just stared at him from her seat at the dining room table, but his father didn't even look up from the television. He walked outside, climbed into C.J.'s truck, and shut the door behind him. He never looked back.

His parents weren't all that upset about it, apparently, because they never tried to get in touch with him. Even when his mother died in the spring of 1987, he heard about it from C.J. instead of his father, who was probably too drunk to remember that he even had a son, much less that he needed to tell him that the woman who gave birth to him had died of cancer. Bender wondered what he would have done if he had known his mother was sick while she was still alive, if he would have gone to visit her or not. Maybe he would have, if only for a few minutes, just so he could see her one last time. Maybe, but maybe not. He didn't even go to the funeral.

Not long after he moved in with C.J., Bender dropped out of school and got a job with an electrical repair company down the street from the apartment. The apartment wasn't all that far away from his old house, but the distance didn't matter. He was on his own for the first time in nineteen years and it felt pretty damn good.

After a while, Bender grew tired of Shermer. He moved out of C.J.'s place and into a tiny, smelly, rat-infested room they called an "efficiency" in downtown Chicago. Bender didn't know what was so efficient about it, especially since the oven was broken and the heater only worked if he kicked it every once in a while. The apartment was only one room with a small kitchen, an even smaller bathroom, and a bed that he had to pull out of the wall every time he wanted to sleep. One morning he borrowed C.J.'s pick up truck and drove around Shermer's middle class neighborhoods right before the trash man started his rounds. He ended up with two end tables, two sofa chairs (one of them had a huge rip down the middle, but was in otherwise perfect condition), a couch, a rectangular dinner table with a missing leg (easily fixable), and three wooden chairs taken from three different houses. His apartment was complete.

Jobs were a different story. He started out working as a waiter in a little Italian restaurant, but that didn't work out as well as he might have hoped. He got fired when he told a customer that she might want to lay off the fried foods because they would go straight to her already voluminous hips. After that, he went through five jobs in as many months. There was the gas station, where he'd gotten in trouble for smoking a cigarette while he was on the clock…outside by the pumps. Next came the convenience store, then the grocery store, then the record store. Retail was definitely not the place for him, he decided. Too many people ordering him around. Next up was the snack shack at the mall, where he ran into more giggling teenagers with Daddy's credit card than he could stomach. He only lasted a week at that one.

Finally, he decided to go back to electrical repair. He was good at it and the hours were flexible. His old boss gave him a good recommendation and he got hired at a small company that operated out of a little building down the street from his apartment. After a year or so, he got a second job at the parking garage handing out ticket stubs to people going to see baseball games and operas, and he worked there every Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening from five until about midnight.

So, there he was, three years later, living the dream life. He hung out at shit hole bars and worked for a shit hole repair company and went home to a shit hole apartment. He didn't have a lot of money and what he did have he spent on rent, food, cigarettes and beer. His walls smelled like pee and his bathroom smelled like crap and his mattress smelled like a combination of the two. He had no family, only a handful of friends, and no pets except for the giant rat that lived under his bed and left shit pellets in his cereal boxes.

It had been the best three years of his entire life.

Bender arrived back at his apartment building a little after 1 A.M. He was working on his third cigarette by then, even though they were doing little to fend off the intense cold. He pushed open the broken metal gate and threw his cigarette onto the concrete floor, using the tip of his boot to put it out.

When he got to his apartment, he tossed his jacket onto the couch and went into the kitchen for something to eat. There wasn't much in the way of real food, but he found a box of cookies and ate a handful of them, washing them down with a cup of milk. He stood there for a moment at his kitchen counter with the box of cookies in one hand and the glass of milk in the other, staring at the wall. When he'd finished eating, he walked back into the living room, where his answering machine was lit up like a Christmas tree. He pushed the blinking green button and listened to the first message, which was from Joe, his boss at the repair company, asking him if he could take a job on Sunday afternoon. Bender pushed Delete and moved on to the last message.

"Bender, man, it's C.J. Listen, some guy called for you over here at the apartment. Sounded kinda weird if you ask me. Nervous, you know? Didn't wanna give him your new number, but I told him I'd pass the message along, so here it is. His name is, uh, let's see…Brian Johnson. He said that Clara's…no, Claire's mom died and that she wants everyone to come back to Shermer for the funeral on Wednesday. He left his number for you to call him, but he said he'll only be there until Sunday morning because he's taking the train back. His number is…617-495-8213. And I think that's it, but give me a call if you need to crash here. Catch you later, man."

There was a bit of rustling on C.J.'s end before the message cut off and the answering machine beeped loudly, signaling that he had no further messages to listen to. Bender stood very still for a moment, staring at the machine and taking deep breaths. After a moment, he reached out to push Delete, but stopped himself just in time. He ran a hand through his short, dark hair and sighed.

Once upon a time…

Goddamn it.