The Human Stain: Chapter 3

It's true that we don't know what we've got until we lose it, but it's also true that we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives. Unknown

Both Boyd men watched the blonde with the ponytail slide behind the wheel of the car. Mick looked apprehensively at his son, and shook his head. "Wasted on 'er, boy. You don't come by a car like that everyday."

John shifted his gaze over and down to his old man. He dusted off his palms, shook his head, and muttered, "Sheeeet. We ain't getting in no trouble for this, are we?"

Mick just gave a small shake of his head, and readjusted his cap. The hot summer air felt good against the perspiration slicking his face as he made a few half-hearted attempts to fan himself with the baseball cap. "We ain't seen nothin' until we report it tonight. Got that?"

"Got it."

Meanwhile, Claire was dying of heat shock inside a tin can that resembled a car. Without thinking about it, she plopped herself into the driver's seat before hitting the roof of the car with a shriek. "YEOWCH!" It had been bad enough that the car had the steering wheel on the right side, where the passenger seat would normally be on other cars. How odd. Now the seat was trying to brand her.

Both Mick and John Boyd quit talking long enough to realign their eyes with the girl and car. "You okay?" Mick ventured first.

"Yeah, yeah," Claire gasped, angling her body so that she was off the burning vinyl that the sun had oh-so-nicely heated in everyone's absence. Even through her jeans, she felt the tingling ache that had accompanied the original surge of pain.

Duh, it's almost noon and this car has been sitting here God-knows-how-long, she scolded herself. You should of seen that coming.

"Forgot the seat was going to be hot."

A corner of John Boyd's mouth quirked upward.

Shooting a glare down at the seat beneath rear end, Claire couldn't help but notice that the seats had been detailed. It was small, but the center cushion had a number emblazoned upon it. "38?" she mouthed quietly.

Keeping the door open to air the car out, Claire slipped one of the two keys present on the key ring into the ignition. Inhaling slowly, she turned the key. It was the moment of truth.

All three were startled when the engine gunned to life without hesitation. Claire herself held plenty of hesitation, holding her body aloft over the seat to avoid another burn while letting go of a breath she hadn't known she had been holding.

"IT LIVES!" cried Mick Boyd, throwing his hands up in celebration for all the world like the fictional Victor Frankenstein. John Boyd watched his father do a small jog in place with an impassive expression. Mick slapped the roof of the car, which seemed to earn him a loud rev of the engine. "That's right, Clair-ee, show yer stuff!"

"Show wha…?" Claire trailed off, confused by Mick's candor and the subsequent noise that followed it. She hadn't done that. It must have been an old car quirk; the thing was almost thirty years old. Giving the dashboard console a quick once-over, Claire groaned.

No air conditioning?! her head protested.

Never look a gift horse in the mouth, reprimanded a more conscientious voice.

Oh no, not that again. She was so not having a mental argument with herself. That was the first sign of lunacy. The next would be talking out loud the same way, and so on. Claire prayed she wouldn't get that far.

Bracing for the worst, Claire cautiously lowered herself so that her butt touched the seat. Her eyes were closed, her features crunched together – but her face suddenly cleared when she realized the seat wasn't searing hot anymore. It was actually somewhat cool. Making sure she hadn't burned her nerve endings off the first time, Claire hefted her body up once more by bracing her upper shoulders against the back of the seat while simultaneously arcing her body upwards. Using a freehand to grope the vinyl material beneath her, she came to a startling conclusion. Definitely cool… how did that happen so fast?

"Clair-ee?" Mick Boyd called uncertainly over the sound of the engine.

"Sorry, yeah, I'm on my way!" Temporarily panicking as she scrambled to remember how to drive a stick, Claire lifted one foot off the brake and the other off the clutch while shifting into first gear.

The car promptly died.

"Uh…" Sinking lower into her seat, Claire's eyes sheepishly flickered between her audience and the steering column. Something caught her eye there, and her gaze held. The center axis where she presumed the horn to be located had a strange insignia, something she had never come across before. One finger tipped forward and traced the outline while the digit's owner remained fixated by it. The design was very geometric in quality, and from a very abstract point of view she could make out what might have been a mask. It had two dark spots that resembled eyes, a long rectangular vertical shape she thought to be a nose, and a trapezoid below that that might be a mouth. Most definitely odd.

"Hey, you sure you can drive this?" Claire jumped, surprised by the elder mechanic. He had circled the car to the driver's side, and was currently leaning over through the open driver's door to gaze suspiciously at the driver herself.

"Oh god, don't do that!" Claire exclaimed, wiping a wet wisp of hair out of her eyes. The longer she sat there sweltering, the more she felt like a grease monkey – and she didn't even work at the garage. Regaining some of her composure, she sat a little straighter and nodded her affirmative to Mick. "Yeah, yeah, I guess I just got a little excited and wasn't paying attention."

Giving Claire a less-than accepting look, the old mechanic sighed and patted the roof once more. "Give 'er another go, I guess."

"Right." Claire gave Mick a tiny wave and he backed off enough to let her shift her focus to the controls.

"How did this go again…" the woman muttered to herself, quietly enough that Mick wouldn't hear.

She turned the engine over again after making sure she was no longer in first gear. Careful with her feet, Claire kept her prosthesis on the clutch and her other leg on the brake. So far, so good. The car was running fine in neutral, but it was either do or die in the next coming moments.

"C'mon, c'mon," she coaxed it. With her foot off the brake, she began easing off the clutch and down on the gas at the same time after shifting into first. The Datsun crept forward, and Claire's eyes lit up with enthusiasm.

I'm doing it! I'm actually doing it!

Claire turned the wheel, accelerated, and then shifted into the next gear. The car rolled along faster, and her fear of failure began to ebb. There was a moment when she glanced back into the cloudy rearview mirror – she could see Mick waving at her cloud of dust while John stood aside of his father with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. Both figures lost detail via distance and dust, and it was with an unsteady hand that she signaled to turn right out of the lot. The blinker clicked loudly, and she took the turn without mishap.

Now on the road, Claire's courage continued to climb. She reached for the radio dial, hoping it wasn't just an a.m. receiver. Cars as old as the one she drove often only tuned into a.m. stations, after all.

The moment she turned the dial, she deeply wished she hadn't.

"?Bailamos!


Let the rhythm take you over...


?Bailamos!"

"AHHHHHHGG!" came her strangled scream at the sudden explosion of sound. At the same time, she swore she felt the car's engine chortle. Adrenaline drove her to twist the dial back almost violently, and at the same time she hit the brakes and squealed to a stop. With her pulse beating in her ears, she sat gasping like a winded animal. She had stalled the car again, but that was the least of her concerns. The blasting of a horn behind her jump, and she glanced over her shoulder. The driver behind her was laying on his horn, clearly irritated by her sudden stop. Trembling fingers reached for the steering wheel again, and she thought out the process in her mind while shifting back to neutral. Driving on the right side of the car wasn't nearly as difficult when more pressing concerns made their point known.

Let off the brake, clutch, ease off, add gas…

Claire was moving again. She had to repeat, brake, clutch, gas as a mindless mantra all the way to work while inwardly fuming at the nameless idiot that had left the radio tuned into an obnoxious pop station.

The 1979 Datsun pulled into a sea of fresh asphalt, and rolled past rows of cars lined one-by-one in their respective parking spaces. Claire parked in the back. She had managed to make it to work without further mishap, and thanked her lucky stars for that. Today was just not her day. It would have been fine if it had ended with the splurge of toothpaste, but no, it simply escalated to the point where she was riding around in a junker for lack of a better vehicle. At this rate, she was sure to try her luck with a disgruntled customer and have it out in the store.

Claire's place of work was not quite where she imagined she would be at this point in her life. She worked at Ashbury Paints, a large chain in the southwest that catered to a professional painter's wish list. The largest portion of their customer base was do-it-yourselfer's, but any contractor that stepped inside was treated as king. As a graduate of Santa Clara University in California, Claire had a degree in chemistry that she never put to use. In fact, that was her problem – she never applied herself. If Simon were still around he would drink to that fact. Instead of mixing components in a lab like she had someday hoped, here she was mixing tints. Her decision to move to Nevada had been hasty on the heels of her divorce, and she took the first job she was offered.

Problem was, she had stayed there. She would never admit it to herself, but she had the horrible habit of getting too comfortable without assessing other options. Maybe she was lazy, maybe she didn't care, but that was the indelible truth.

Some part of the shark attack had changed her, and it had had a snowball effect that had impacted her personality ever since. Claire used to be a risk taker, and wouldn't think twice about something if she felt the need to go for it. After gaining her prosthesis, she remained somewhat impetuous but it had definitely toned her down. The divorce only proved to further distance herself from the girl she had once been.

In a way, losing her leg had catapulted her life into this downward spiral. It was something she hadn't realized yet, or maybe she did, but by then it was something like a taped train wreck. In slow motion, one could record exactly when the impact occurred.

The moment could be replayed over and over again for analysis, but no one could rewind the reality of what had already happened.

The young woman climbed out of the car, soaked in her own sweat. The seat had cooled somehow, but the interior of the car had been an oven. She had been forced to keep her head outside the open window the entire drive, much like a dog with his tongue wagging in the wind. The image fit with her less than glamorous day, really.

Slamming the door shut in disgust, Claire ignored the metallic clang that seemed to echo throughout the car. She walked around it, intent on heading for store when she noticed that the car had an old decal at the very end of its hood. The number was coated in dust, gray and barely legible, but it was unmistakable – 38.

"Was this a racecar once?" she idly wondered aloud, tapping the bare metal with a single fingernail. The car suddenly rocked back on its shocks once, or maybe she only imagined it. Now that she was alone in front of the vehicle, she gave it a more thorough perusal. What she thought had been gray and blue from afar seemed to be instead a two-tone color scheme that had faded with time under the sun. The lower half of the car was the gray-blue, and the upper half held a hue that blurred somewhere between a gray and a purple, almost as if the top plane of the Datsun had been red once. She could have sworn the number '38' was emblazoned on the car doors as well. Why hadn't she noticed it before? In any case, one thing was for certain: the car either needed an entirely new paint job or someone had to take it on one last drive to a metal graveyard for a nice retirement.

Shaking her head, the woman locked the car and shoved the old key ring into her pocket. She had to get to work, and pondering the origins of the junker was the last thing she needed to do. She stepped lively across the parking lot once the vehicle was secure, and headed for the box store at the end of the blacktop. Large letters spelling out 'Ashbury Paints' loomed overhead, and then there was the familiar 'whoosh' of the automatic doors as Claire stepped into air-conditioned comfort.

Inside, the store was typical for one selling its particular wares. There was a line of three registers for checkout and a customer service counter near the front, as well as restrooms. Towards the back of the store on the right-hand side, there was a stainless steel paint desk for customers to place their orders. Behind the desk were the paint mixers and tint canisters, as well as the odd employee or two. The left side of the store was lined with shelves of miscellaneous product such as spray paint, brushes, paint thinner and other accessories. The middle of the store was devoted to paint chips, and held rows of them for customers to browse. The ceiling was high, denoting the structure as a warehouse. It wasn't an overly large building, but it was a good size.

For years, Claire had worked there.

Making her way towards the back of the store, Claire gave a few waves to some of her fellow employees. Lastly there was Miguel Ramirez, up on a ladder stocking paint rollers. She gave him a bob of her head and a smile, and was rewarded with a wave before he dropped a roller out of the bundle that was tucked in the crook of his elbow. It fell several feet, hit the concrete floor and rolled down the aisle he was working in. Claire swore she heard a muffled curse, and he started to make his way down the work ladder with his arms full.

"Hey, wait," she interrupted, chasing after the rogue roller, "let me get that."

Snatching the stray item up with one hand, she readjusted the purse hanging from her shoulder and handed the roller back up to the man. He was about her age, perhaps slightly younger, and in that moment extremely thankful. "Thanks, Walters."

"Claire," she corrected him.

"You know I know, I just like annoying you."

"Noted," returned her dry voice.

"Where's Zebrowski?"

"Haven't run into him yet, thankfully."

Miguel nodded in agreement. They both held a mutual dislike for the assistant store manager, something ingrained over many years enduring his humorless work ethic. There wasn't a day that went by when Zebrowski wouldn't be trying to 'uphold the store's core values' and reciting them to the employees like a fanatical corporate prophet.

"Well, I better clock in. I'm already really late," Claire sighed.

"Okay, sounds good. See you later."

"Later."

A short wave, and then she was continuing on her trek for the break room. She left the cavernous storeroom for a small hallway that stretched back a few feet before turning into an open room. Vending machines lined one wall, lockers lined another, and somewhere in the middle stood an array of tables and chairs. There was a small kitchenette with a sink, microwave, and mini fridge at the far end of the break room for employee use, and indeed it did show a fair bit of use. Bits of food encrusted the edges of the microwave, and dirty dishes were heaped in the small sink. If Zebrowski saw this, he would undoubtedly shuffle all employees back into the break room to give a lecture on store cleanliness.

Rolling her eyes at the thought, Claire thanked whatever luck she had been left with that day and clocked in. She was alone, and Zebrowski was nowhere in sight. Hurriedly, the blonde punched her social security number into the store's digital timekeeper. It was a device that was attached to the wall nearest the entrance to the break room, and had been a suggestion from Zebrowski to the store manager. Instead of time cards, he had argued for this digital demon – that way employees could no longer forge false times onto the paper equivalent.

The machine in front of her blipped at her, a scornful sound and displayed the time she clocked in. 12:34 p.m. She should have been in by 8, and the machine let her know it. After showing her the time she clocked in, it promptly gave her the time between 8 and 12:34.

-4 hr 34 min

She really, really hated Zebrowski. He could dig it in even when he wasn't physically around.

Turning from the mechanical menace, Claire set her purse down on a nearby table and began to mess with the dial on her locker. Upon hearing a satisfying 'click', she swung the locker door aside and pulled out her uniform – an apron splattered with paint. She put the top strap over her head, and began to tie it in the back.

Yep, today was definitely taking the cake for worse day ever.

The day eventually wound down to a close. Claire, for her part, was absolutely amazed that she hadn't encountered a testy customer. Everyone was cordial for the most part, save for one woman who could not decide for the life of her on what color she actually wanted. She made Claire mix many different hues based on a sample of red wallpaper taken from the woman's living room. Each time, the woman rejected the results of Claire's endeavor to mix the right color. The computerized color sampling hadn't gone well, and the color had been off enough the first time that even Claire could see it. From there, well, it had only served to prove the woman was truly colorblind.

By the fourth gallon of wasted paint, the older customer had still shaken her head, denying it was the right color to her sample. Claire took several of her coworkers into the situation, and each declared the fourth gallon to be nearly identical to the sample. Still, it did not sway the woman. After much back and forth, the woman decided to go with a yellow from a paint chip she had found abandoned on the paint desk from a previous customer. How the woman had so vehemently wanted the red before flippantly deciding on the yellow was beyond Claire's conception, but she did not ask questions. Five gallons of paint later, the woman left with one.

It was times like these that made Claire want to question her faith in humanity.

It was 3:30 when the customer left with her urine yellow (calling it such made her feel slightly better) and 6:00 when she finally left the store after a deluge of customers stampeded inside around 5:00. She was supposed to get off at 5:00, but Zebrowski had 'suggested' she stay longer. Anyone with half a brain knew his 'suggestion' was really a sugarcoated command. Gritting her teeth, she toughed it out.

It was around 6:00 when she exited her weekday prison.

"Oh, hell no."

Claire skidded to a halt. The air had cooled considerably, and temperatures continued to drop steadily as the desert prepared for night. The last of the sun's rays were fading into the distance, turning the sky all shades of pink and yellow.

Despite the dimmer circumstances, she did not have to have ace vision to see what had been written into the grime on the back window of the Datsun.

WASH ME

Smart ass kids, she mentally cursed.

Glancing around, she squinted against the twilight as she tried to make out anyone hiding among the last of the lingering cars inhabiting the parking lot. She saw no one, heard no one, but it didn't mean they weren't there.

"It isn't even mine!" she spat to no one in particular, "It's just a crappy junk heap!"

Silence.

Muttering angrily to herself, she fumbled for the keys in her purse only to realize a minute later that she had stuck them in her jeans pocket. She patted for them, felt the bulge, and then extracted them. Still cursing in a most unintelligible way, she stuck the car key into the car door and turned it while lifting up on the handle.

Nothing.

"What… the… hell…" she said brokenly, setting her purse down. She used both hands this time, with both sets of fingers under the silver handle. When this proved fruitless, she turned the key again to make sure she had actually unlocked it. Through the window, she could see the knob was popped up. It was unlocked, but it just wouldn't open.

"Piece of shitty crap…" she lamented. Desperate, she put her good leg up against the side of the car for extra force, and balanced on her prosthetic as both fingers gripped themselves like lancers beneath the door handle.

She inhaled sharply, and pulled back.

The door swung open as easily as one would expect from any unlocked car, and Claire went flying. All balance lost, the blonde landed on her rear and bounced a couple of times before securing herself against the asphalt with both hands on either side of her body.

Her face bore a comical expression reading of bewilderment, and her mouth hung agape. It took her a few seconds to register what had just happened, and then she was once more on her feet, rubbing her aching backside.

"PIECE OF CRAP!" accused Claire, pointing at the offending vehicle in a rage.

The car stood silent, the mocking door still ajar.

Stomping over to the vehicle, Claire dropped herself into her seat like a puppet whose strings were suddenly severed. She reached out, teeth clenched, and pulled inwards to shut the door.

It wouldn't budge.

Claire groaned and fell against the steering column in defeat.

God hated her today.

No. Fucking. Doubt.

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. All recognizable characters are the property of HasTak. All original characters are mine.

A/N: There's Chapter 3, hope you liked it! For all you noticing, I've been quiet on who the car really is. I've dropped enough hints in this chapter for you to probably get a good idea, and if you are still wondering… well, let's just say you shall find out later! Please R&R!