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If I were able to express in words how autumn truly makes me feel, I can’t say with certainty that I would.

 I guess I was just looking for change.  I needed away from home.  I needed away from my parents.  I needed away from my life, and I needed away from its familiar monotony.  I needed something.  Something.  What it was, I hadn’t the slightest idea.  I was young and stupid.  In the end, I did find change, or rather, I suppose it found me.

I had moved up to Vermont to look for that change after taking a celebratory year off to do nothing following an average high school stint.  Choosing UVM on a whim and getting in on another, I spent my college years like any normal student would, partying, sleeping, drinking a bit more than I should, dating a girl or two (nothing serious), eating cheap food, checking out just about every female I passed or encountered, and fitting in classes when I could.  After bouncing around for a semester or two, I settled in on history as a major, probably with aspirations to teach, who knows.  I biked pretty much everywhere and held a couple mediocre jobs, one at a coffee shop, one at a record shop, and one that was a combination of both, though in college one can hardly tell the difference between the three.

I graduated fairly unnoticed, making the honor roll in my final two semesters, and decided to stay on the college scene for awhile.  Most of my friends moved away to get jobs and start their lives, but I never really had too many, so I didn’t really notice once they were gone.  I spent my days doing pretty much the same thing as before, even fitting in a class or two week for kicks.  Professors never notice in those huge classes filled with a sea of freed hormonal spirits.  Every once in awhile, I would try my hand at taking a test.  Intro to Micro Economics, History of Jazz, Archaeology 101, Russian Fairy Tales, Calc I, whatever.  They’ve got to be the intro or popular classes, though, otherwise it won’t work.  I think I passed a few of them.  Anyway, I spent a good amount of time hidden away in the library.  I’d read, sleep, slip notes into random books, join in group discussions, or just walk around the pockets of coffee and ear buds copying solutions to homework problems found somewhere online.

I walked into the library on one rainy late-morning without a plan, stopping briefly to ask the cute clerk behind the front desk that worked on Tuesdays if anyone had found a phone.  No one had.  Her hair was blue that week.  I continued up to the third floor which was unsurprisingly empty and after mulling around the How-To’s for a bit, I moved over to the 580s and decided on an old monotone hardback with silver title letters.  It was some generic book on botany.  Volume 4.

I had only been reading for about twenty minutes or so when a kid who looked to be about my age tromped into the room and took a seat at a table two down from me.  His hair was messy, not uncommon for the circumstances, and he wore a nine o’clockish shadow, but I didn’t really look at him long.  We both sat for awhile, reading our respective books.

“Man, it’s like I can’t understand a single thing.”

He hadn’t looked up from his book when he said this, so I wasn’t really sure how to respond.  I went back to reading, but a moment later he slammed his book down on the table and sat back in disgust.  I folded my book closed, but was careful to hold the spot with my finger.  I looked over and waited for him to stop scratching his head.

“Well, what’s your book on?”

The kid turned to me, as if he had just noticed me there.

“I haven’t the slightest idea.  It’s all in German.”

“Do you- you don’t know German, I’m suspecting.”

“Precisely.”

Getting up from his chair, the kid walked over, book in hand, and took the chair across from me, leaning in as close as he could while still staying seated.

“Now why would I choose to read a book in a language I do not know, in this case German?”

I looked at him, half blankly and half with interest.  “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

Sitting back in his chair, he contemplated the answer briefly, looking somewhere above and behind me.  “You might be right.”

We both stared silently.

“Well, thanks,” he said wholeheartedly, jumping from his chair.  Sliding the book under his left arm he walked around the corner.  I listened for evidence of his departure.  He took the stairs.

I leaned back in my chair and let out a half audible “humph”, unsure of what to make of the encounter.  Shaking my head, I turned my attention back to the botany book and noticed that I had let my finger slip from its pages.  I looked up expecting to see him standing there laughing, “You lost your spot,” but there was only the unemotional cream wall.  It didn’t say anything.

I got up and slowly returned the book to its proper place.  I took a lap around the floor, descended the stairs to the floor below and did the same.  Uninspired, I skipped my lap of the ground floor and exited the library, taking a quick unnoticed peak at the clerk on the way.  It had stopped raining, but only recently as half the pedestrians still held up their umbrellas.  I pulled in a large breath of air through my nose.  It would probably start again soon.  Leaving my bike latched to the stand, I set off down the sidewalk through the puddles and people.

-

After lunch and an uneventful Chemistry class, I took the fifteen minute walk back to my bike in a light but steady rain, hands in pockets and shoulders hunched up to help the already lifted collar cover my neck.  Relieved to at last be at my bike, I took the plastic bag off its seat and set off for my scrawny apartment.  I decided to take the sidewalk, which normally I didn’t do, but it was fairly empty due to the rain.  I watched the cracks roll underneath me as I weaved through the few brave souls, avoiding eye contact with a policeman that glared at me for not using the street.  He wasn’t going to do anything anyway.  As I passed a girl wearing patterned rain boots and a skirt too short for the weather, I looked back over my shoulder to catch another glimpse, failing to pay attention to the approaching crosswalk.  Woken by the blaring horn emerging from a one way street, I whipped my head around, instinctively pulled hard on the hand brake and turned left.  The angered car just barely missed me and skidded to a halt.  I could hear the driver yelling some garbled profanity at me.  He had missed the light.

I felt a wave of relief flush over me, but it was short lived.  Making the mistake again of looking back over my shoulder, I aimed away from the wheelchair ramp and slammed my front wheel into the curb.  I flew over the handlebars and landed flat on my back, seeing a flash of rain boots and skirt in my brief awkward somersault.  I laid there for a moment, more out of embarrassment than out of pain, and let the cool rain meet my scraped hands.  I could hear a few passing sympathies and slowly turned my head to the right.  My eyes were met with the sight of black chucks faced toward me.  I looked up to the shoes’ owner and started to laugh.

“I still don’t know any German.”

I wiped a layer of rain from my face before replying.  “I should expect not, you only couldn’t this morning.”

“There’s no telling what one day may bring.”

He held out a hand and after thinking about his response briefly I gladly accepted the boost.  I patted myself down, checking for rips and cuts.  Everything seemed in place, albeit a bit wetter than normal, but acceptable.

“Hey, thanks.”

“No problem,” he paused.  “Wanna grab a bite to eat?”

I looked down the street in the opposite direction toward home.  Today was Ramen night.  Most were.  “I’m, uh, I’m actually kinda busy tonight.  Plus, gotta get out of these clothes.”

He moved toward the edge of the sidewalk, away from home.  “Could be,” was all he said, half looking back at me over his shoulder.

I was never sure whether he was waiting for me to catch up or if he was trying to persuade me to follow.

We walked in silence for a block or two until we reached one of the local bars.

I finally broke the quiet, “Grab a bite to eat?”

“Hey, they’ve got great food.”

He looked back at me, holding the door open.  I stood, getting wetter by the second, and thought about how much cash I had on me.

“I wasn’t that hungry anyway,” I said smiling and locking my bike to a rack.

That was how I met Hutch.