Chapter 2 - The Storm Gathers
"Please stay in your own seat," the train's ticket clerk said the words for what was probably the ten thousandth time in her life. Her eyes were not even really seeing Jack Walker, only that he had spread himself out across two seats of the Economy cabin. Her blonde hair done up in a tight pony tale to match the transit uniform.
In fairness to her, Jack was not someone who often received more than a first glance. Twenty-four years old, average height, average build, average weight, and wearing a t-shirt and jeans he was even of average fashion sense. In fact, Jack was only unusual in two ways. First, he owed a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in student debt for a history degree that did nothing to help him find work, and secondly, according to Samantha, he was the world's biggest asshole.
Apparently refusing to let Samantha use the tickets and reservations, that he'd paid for, was a great sin. Her argument was that he, "wouldn't even enjoy them without her there."
"I actually..." he said and pulled his phone out of his pocket. The screen was creased with a half a dozen fractures, but thankfully kept working all the same, "have two tickets. Girlfriend and I split up..." he said and showed the ticket clerk the two e-tickets.
Now the ticket clerk did look at him, ice blue eyes locking onto his. She was actually rather beautiful. Tired, a bit worn down, her uniform worn a hundred times and starting to show its age, her skin blemished and without make up, "and you feel the need to sit like a kid just because you can?"
"So, we're in agreement that I can?"
In fairness Samantha had been right. He hadn't much enjoyed the trip. He'd thought of her when Boston's skyline had come into view. He'd thought of her when the hotel waiter had brought up the dinner for two included in the hotel package he'd booked them. The waiter had done his best not to be too obvious as he wondered where the 'for two' was in the tiny room. He'd though of her as he walked through galleries that she'd picked out. He thought of her every time he pulled another twenty dollars out of a bank machine and saw his account balance.
He wasn't being unreasonable. Pay him back for the trip, and she could have the tickets and reservations if she wanted them. Or pay for her half and he would figure out somewhere else to stay and she could have the hotel. But he would be god damned if he was going to pay for a trip for his ex and her new "friend", whatever the fuck that meant.
The ticket agent exhaled a lungful of air warmed with frustration and moved on.
Cleavland was still two hours away and Jack decided to focus on the one good memory he did have from the trip. Opening his duffle bag, he pulled out an urn. Its surface was beautiful, the metal yellow, fresh, and intricately carved. Words in a dozen dead languages, some he didn't even recognize, wrapped around its surface like overlapping chains.
The one thing his history degree had come in handy for was giving him an eye for antiques.
Samantha had indulged him at first, but after a few months of visiting estate sales she'd started to complain about why anyone would want 'dead people's stuff'.
Never go to antique markets: they're a suckers game. Everything in them has already been examined and put down as trash. Estate sales, that's where the real action's at. Relatives with no idea what things are, or what they're worth, just looking to get rid of hundreds of pounds of stuff some distant relative left behind.
For example, relatives of the deceased had no idea that modern engraving machines were not programed to make characters from dead, or imaginary, or obscure languages. They didn't know that hand engraving was an art all but lost to time and either someone had recently spent tens of thousands of dollars having this urn carved, or the urn was more than fifty years old. And they didn't know that if the urn was more than fifty years old then copper, or bronze, would have tarnished. None of that was to say the urn was actually made of gold. But for fifty bucks Jack was willing to roll the dice and if he ended up with a pretty nick knack to sit on a bookshelf then so be it.
"Sir, please stand up," the voice was deep, officious, the practiced voice of a man giving an order. Jack looked up and into the face of a transit police officer. The man was wearing a uniform that could have been of a police man. He had a gun strapped to his right hip, a pepper spray bottle beside it, and a taser strapped to his left. He wore a ballistic vest, stretched tight across a voluminous belly, a gray shirt bulged from the vest's sides where rolls of fat were being squeezed out.
"What's going on?" Jack asked, he hadn't even heard the man approach.
"Sir! Please, Stand, Up!" the fat constable said, left hand on the handle of his taser.
Arguing seemed like the wrong approach and Jack stood, hands out to his side, his duffle bag, phone, and the golden urn, sitting on the seat beside the window, vibrating with the train carriage.
"What the fuck!" the fat constable was twisting his wrists around behind his back, the motion completely unnatural as Jack spun around painfully, like dancing with an incompetent partner. A plastic zip tie squeezed around his wrist.
"What the actual fuck!" he shouted, noticing a dozen heads popped up over their headrests, looking back at him and the action. He was marched along the corridor by the meaty guard, every single person on the train watching him go, face burning with impotent frustration, until he was at the front of the train. Then the guard dumped him, like a sack of gravel, onto an empty bench of seats just behind the locomotive.
"There you go, two seats just for you," the bucket of lard said and walked away.
Jack's face had stopped being flush with rage after the first hour. By the end of the second it was both asleep, and in pain from the pleated edge of the seat digging into his cheek when the train finally rattled to a stop.
Once everyone had departed and the carriage was empty the transit officer's voice reappeared behind him. "Now, are you going to behave from now on?"
Jack could see a list of replies in his mind. The first one was asking the officer if he enjoyed the taste of cock, because he was going to have a lawyer's dick rammed down his throat. That probably was an imprudent thing to say given the circumstance. Unfortunately, every option seemed to fall victim to the same flaw. From calling the officer's parentage into question, to just calling the officer a fatso. After fifteen seconds of trying, and failing, to think of something better, he simply said "yes sir," and with those magic words the plastic cuffs were cut off.
The perfect end to the perfect vacation. He rubbed his cheek as he walked back to his seat to get his things. The seat was empty. Jack closed his eyes, tilted his head back and let out a long, slow, heart-felt stream of profanity.
