Chapter 1

1

 

 

“What the hell are you doing?” Geoff asked me as I ran into the station five minutes before the train was supposed to leave. I clenched my ticket in my hand; half crumbled up but still straight at the barcode. You can’t get on the train if your barcode is fucked up because the scanner won’t read it.

“Man, you know how it is. I can’t get here early, I forget my s**t everywhere.” We do this a lot. Not argue… well yeah, we do argue a whole f*****g lot, but that’s what happens when you jump town every couple of weeks. With the already hectic life we chose to lead and when things don’t go as smooth as we like, tempers can tend to flare up. “Especially with you going out to breakfast with that damn chick and piling all my papers on the floor so you can get your s**t together. You’ve better have got some a*s from that b***h. That’s the only reason you should’ve left me to walk here without any cash for a bus or cab.”

“F**k you.” He may have said that a little too loud, people were looking at us as we hustled to the train. “First off, that’s none of your business. Second, I plan on coming back in a few months. Told her I’d be back to see her and I may need a place to crash. I want to come back and have some more of her coffee. She makes some damn good coffee, I’ll tell you that much,” he chuckled as he elbowed me in the shoulder with that slick smile on his face.

“You sly son of a b***h,” I shook my head and looked at the ticket taker who looked at us like we were a couple of regular f*****g demons on earth. Sure my clothes are dirty and I hadn’t bathed in three days, but I knew sure as hell that I was happier than he was.

We walked past him down to an empty cabin and threw our bags in the racks. “Oh yeah,” Geoff moaned as he leaned back across the padded bench seat across from me with his wrinkled, torn up copy of Vonnegut’s “Cats Cradle” that he had to have read about seventy times. “Do you know when we will hit Boston?”

“Well what time is it?”

“Eleven fifty-nine.”

“Okay, dick. Its noon and it’s a six-hour ride. Do you really need me to do the math?”

“I didn’t know how long the trip was, man. We never went this way from Philly.”

“Read your damn trip voucher and you won’t look like such a dumbass. Look who the responsible one is now!”

“Yeah, my a*s…”

“Cut your s**t, man. Give me the leftover money since I know you didn’t go out to eat this morning. I’m going to grab some grub after a shower.” I demanded as I grabbed my one-night bag from the rack.

“How’d you know?” He said, puzzled, as he tossed me a crumbled twenty out of his pocket.

“Oh, don’t play stupid, dumbass. You went to her place for ‘coffee’,” I threw up the air quotes as I walked over to the door, “So, why the hell would you have gone out to eat? I know you made damn sure to eat out though!”

Laughing, Geoff choked out, “Jack, send the stewardess in here with a glass of water for me. Let’s see if I can bag me a lunch!”

I walked off laughing down to the shower room.