Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 12:33:58 -0500
From: EleCivil <elecivil@gmail.com>
Subject: Laika - Chapter One

Intro/Disclaimer:

This is a story spurned by late-night thunderstorms and bacterial throat
infections, fueled by tap water and long walks to nowhere in particular.
This is the first chapter.  Thanks for giving it a shot, even if you bail
halfway down the page.

Speaking of bailing, if you're too young, too impressionable, or too
uptight to read this, you should probably bail right now.  Especially if
it's against the law for you to read it.  This story probably won't be good
enough to be worth prison time.  This story, while not involving explicit
acts of carnal depravity, deals with issues and themes that might make your
mother, pastor, or uptight neighbor blush.

This story is fictional.  As in, all places, names, and events are made up.
If you think it resembles you or someone you know, it's a coincidence.

Don't post this anywhere without asking me, alright?  And don't steal it,
either.  Not that I think you would stoop so low, valued reader of long
disclaimers.

Thanks to Nifty and AwesomeDude.com for hosting.  Chapters appear first on
AwesomeDude.

---------------------------
Laika by EleCivil
Chapter One:  Detours
---------------------------

"Watchit!"

That was the only warning that my older brother, Mark, had given before
sliding full-speed into the bathroom in nothing but his boxers and two
differently colored socks.  I had just enough time to jump out of the way
before he slid by, executing a half-turn midway through his fabric-aided
linoleum glide.  He slid to a stop just short of the bathtub and looked to
me, raising one eyebrow.  I held up seven fingers.

"Seven?"  He sounded indignant.  Not an easy way to sound at six in the
morning.  "Seven?  That was at least an eight-point-five."

"No way."  I said, removing the toothbrush from my mouth.  "And I told you,
I can't do point-five fingers.  Well, not without a pair of bolt-cutters
and probably a lot of paper towels."

"Yeah, but did you see that distance?  I started at least three feet in
front of the door, and I nearly made it tub-side.  You've got to give me
credit for that."

"Don't knock seven points."

"I have yet to see you do better, and I remember giving you a nine once."

"Not my fault that you're too generous."  I nodded at his feet.  "Your
socks don't match."

"I know.  The way I see it, I've spent the last seventeen years wearing
matching socks.  Seventeen years!  So why not try it this way for a while?"

I quickly rinsed and spat before replying.  "Is this some of that mild
teenage rebellion stuff that I've got to look forward to?"

"No, I don't think so.  I mean, you're what, eleven?  Twelve?"

"You know I'm fifteen.  That's how many times you hit me on my birthday,
remember?"

"Oh, that was your birthday?"  He shrugged.  "Like I was saying, you're
fifteen, and I have yet to see the slightest hint of rebellion.  If it
hasn't started yet, I doubt that it will.  The rebellion gene must skip a
generation now and then."

"I don't know if two years counts as a generation."

"As I was saying, these socks?  That's no rebellion, that's a revolution."
He cocked his head to the side, his words obscured as his toothbrush bobbed
between his lips like an orange plastic cigar.  "Brandon, I'm revolting."

I opened my mouth, but at the last minute, decided against saying anything.
Seemed a little too easy, like a set-up for a set-up.  I'd been through too
many of these early-morning battles of wit to not recognize that as bait.

"Tell you what, Mark.  You stay here; work on the plans for the revolution.
I'll go...reconnoiter the school.  I'll be wearing matching socks, but only
to keep my cover."  I started out into the hall, raising my fist in a sign
of solidarity.  "Stay strong."

"This is no laughing matter, kid.  When the revolution comes, you won't be
spared just because we share a bathroom."  He flashed his reflection a
smile and a thumbs-up before following me out. "You want a ride to school?"

"Yeah, sure."  I was a bit shocked.  I usually took the bus, since Mark and
I ran with completely different crowds.  That is to say, he had a crowd,
and I didn't.  His offer seemed a bit strange, but it was December in
Curson, Michigan, and you just don't turn down a ride when it's December in
Curson, Michigan.

Winter in Curson has always been, and will always be, completely miserable.
It's cold, the sky is in a state of constant gray, the sidewalks are coated
with bumpy, uneven layers of frozen slush, and the wind always seems to be
right in your face, no matter how you stand.  When it snows, it comes down
hard and heavy, making any trip on foot take about twice as long.  The
streets are always clear enough to keep schools open, though.  The salt
trucks see to that, painting the pavement with splotches of hope-crushing
grayscale camouflage, like soldiers' jackets in black-and-white war movies.
A ride to school sounded a lot better than walking to the bus stop in that
kind of weather.

Ten minutes of preparation later, and we were in Mark's car.  As we set off
down the street, he kept slipping me these looks out of the corner of his
eye.  On top of that, he hadn't turned on the radio.  He's the kind of guy
that never drives anywhere without some kind of music playing.  Still, I
didn't think much of it.  I turned and looked out the window, phasing out
of reality for a little while.  It felt like it was taking a lot longer
than usual to get to school.  I checked the clock on the stereo display,
but according to that, it was one thirty.  I told myself to remember to set
that for him, then turned back to the window.  The scenery was starting to
look unfamiliar.

"Where are we?" I turned to Mark.

He grinned, still looking straight ahead.

"I'm serious."

He nodded slightly, toward an upcoming street sign.  It indicated that the
turn-off for the interstate was coming up.  He slowly took one hand off of
the wheel and, with a dramatic flourish, hit a button causing every door on
the car to lock with a dull "thud".  As if, had he not locked it, I would
have flung the door open and leapt out of a moving car, just to be sure I
wasn't late to school.  I mean, come on, I'm not that big of a geek.
Or...maybe I am that big of a geek, but too big of a wuss.  Minor geek or
major wuss, the outcome was the same: I'm not diving out of any moving
cars.

I wasn't happy about being shanghaied like this, but I knew better than to
try to talk Mark out of anything.  I sank back in my seat, tossed my
backpack into the back, and sighed.

"So, where are we going?"

"School."

"You're going toward the interstate.  I'm pretty sure school is in our
state."

"I never said it was going to be our school."

I should've known better than to accept a ride from him.  "So, what school
is it?"

"Um..."  He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and passed it to me.  I
unfolded it.  It was a hand-drawn map with a list of directions.  My heart
sank as I neared the bottom.

"Columbus, Ohio?"

"Yeah.  Hang on to that, you can navigate for me."

"Why the hell are we going to Columbus?"

"A question asked by everyone to ever move in the general direction of
Columbus."

"Seriously."

"Told my friend I'd do him a favor."  He stopped there, as if that were
enough information.

"Go on."

"All right, you know Pete Enzer?"

"Um...heard of him, I guess."  Enzer was one of the hot-shot types that my
brother hung around with.  I think he threw something at me once, but that
was about the extent of our relationship.

"Right.  So, Pete has this cousin named Bill.  He lives in Detroit."

"Detroit.  One hour away from Curson.  As opposed to Columbus, which is
like...what, five?"

"Yeah.  Anyway, Bill got caught smoking something-or-other, and his mom
told him that he had to do her a favor as punishment."

"Okay."

"So Bill's mom tells him that a friend of hers from Curson - Val something
- needs to have her son picked up after school in Columbus and brought back
home.  He was competing in some kind of contest or something at this other
school, and he found a ride down there, but he needs a ride back."

"So she told Bill to pick up Val's son."

"Right.  Now, Bill didn't feel like taking such a long drive, especially
since his license got suspended five months ago and he doesn't want his mom
to find out."

"So he told you to do it?"

"No, he told Pete to do it.  He figures since Pete's from Curson, he'd be
the best one to ask.  Well, more 'threaten' than 'ask', but to a guy like
Bill, it's the same thing."

"Right.  So..."

"So, a week ago, I borrowed some cash from Pete.  He said I could forget
about paying him back if I did him a favor and picked up Nick."

"Nick being the name of-"

"Pete's cousin's mom's friend's son from Curson, right."

"This...you know, I'm almost following this.  But why drag me along?"

"Couple reasons.  First, because, like I was just saying this morning, you
haven't done anything rebellious, ever.  Skipping school once will be good
for you.  Second, because it's a long trip and I need someone - preferably
someone smart, which rules out most of my friends - to hold the map.
Third, because Nick's in your grade, and I figure he'd rather ride back
with someone his age than sit here in awkward silence with his mother's
friend's son's cousin's casual acquaintance."

"You think he'd rather ride in an awkward silence with his mother's
friend's son's cousin's casual acquaintance's brother?  You don't think
that I'm going to be, like, entertaining or anything, do you?"

"I'd never set such high expectations.  I think very little of you, you
know that."  He said, smirking.  I rolled my eyes.

"So you're going to drag me along on a ten hour road trip just so you have
someone to hold your map?"

"Yeah, that's about it."

I sighed and nodded to an upcoming sign.  "Right turn, South on 75."

"Paying off already.  Now, put on some music."  He pointed to the large
binder full of discs that he kept between the seats of the car.

I opened it in the middle and pulled out the first CD I saw - a burnt one
with a white label.  I slipped it into the CD player and hit play.  The
music that started was, oddly enough, Gregorian monks chanting covers of
popular rock songs.

"What the hell is this?"  I laughed.

"I don't know.  You picked it."

"The label said 'music and stuff'."

"Are you saying this isn't music?  Or stuff?"

He had me there.

---------------------------

It was an hour into the drive.  The Gregorian chanters had run out of songs
to cover, and Mark was talking about his socks again.

"Think about it.  Why does everybody match their socks?"

"Probably because they sell them in pairs."

"Yeah, but why?  Dig deeper.  The government.  The military."

"Aren't they kind of busy right now?  You know, with the War on Things More
Important Than Socks?"

"Have you ever seen a soldier who wasn't wearing matching socks?"

"Sure.  There was that G.I. Joe we had when we were kids.  He only had one
foot." I pointed out.

"Oh yeah, Staff Sergeant Stumpy.  Still, if he hadn't lost that foot while
serving bravely against those Transformers, I guarantee it'd have a sock to
match the other one."

"I think you've got it backwards.  Army guys wear matching socks because
everyone else does; we don't wear matching socks because the Army does."

"Either way, it comes down to segregation."  He began rapping his hands
against the steering wheel to accent his words.  "Keep the white socks with
the white socks.  The slipper-socks with the slipper-socks.  The
patched-heel wool work socks with-"

"I get it."

"And as long as every sock keeps to its own kind, everything's smooth,
right?  But mix them together, and people start looking at you funny."

"You're like Malcolm X.  Except that he stood for stuff, and you're trying
to play off the fact that you forgot to do laundry and didn't have any
clean pairs of socks left."  I leaned back and closed my eyes.  I didn't
get to sleep in on school days very often, and a few bumps in the asphalt
weren't going to stop me now that I had a chance.  "Seriously, though.
Keep fighting."

---------------------------

I woke up when we pulled into a rest stop gas station.

"You have any money?"  Mark asked.

"Maybe, I dunno."  I was just coming out of car-sleep, that layer of sleep
right between drowsiness and consciousness that exists only in moving
automobiles.  No condition to talk numbers.

"I might need it."

"Wha?  Why?"  That got my attention.  I pulled myself up and unhooked my
seat belt.

"I've got enough for either gas or food, but not both."

I checked my wallet.

"I've got twenty and some change."  I'd been saving that.

"Cool.  I didn't want to have to call Dad and have him come pick us up on
the side of the road somewhere.  Which he probably wouldn't."

I lowered my voice into my Dad impression.  "You want to skip school?  You
can skip your ass on home, then!"

Mark did the same.  "Better skip fast, too - long trip, innit?  If you're
late for work, I'm keeping this week's pay and leaving your car down
there."

"Pob'ly get stripped by those street gangs, down there.  They teach them
kids how to strip faster'n a Dee-troit girl on Labor Day weekend."  My
Dad-voice quivered into a strangled attempt to hold back laughter right
around "Dee-troit", both of us cracking up.  Dad loved to compare things to
girls from "Dee-troit".  Mom, being from Detroit, occasionally tolerated
it.

Once we were sufficiently gassed up, we found our way back onto the
interstate.  The dashboard clock now read quarter after four.  Once again,
I told myself to set that for him.

---------------------------

"Ten Speed Artichokes."

"Top Swedish Architects."

"Teamster Seeks Alibi."

"Terrorist Segway Attack."

"Travel-games Suck Ass."

"I think you win that one, even with the hyphen.  That's seven to five,
you."  I said, raising a hand in defeat.  "I give."

"Good.  One more round of license plate acronyms would have made me smash
this bastard into a corn silo, just to break up the boredom."

"Go for it.  Free corn."

Mark pretended to jerk the wheel to one side to fake me out.  That used to
scare the hell out of me back when he was first learning to drive.

"All right.  Acronyms have worn out.  What's next?"  I asked.

Mark stayed silent for a few seconds before saying "How about that alphabet
game?  I am going on a road trip, and I am bringing an Annoying sibling."

 "Okay.  I'm going on a road trip, and I'm bringing a Bell jar and an
Annoying sibling."

"I'm going on a road trip, and I'm bringing my Cock-sucking brother-"

"Hey, how come I'm in all of yours?"

He shrugged.  "I'm not bringing anything else."

I never did like that game very much.

---------------------------

We got to Columbus by noon.  It was raining hard.  We spent the next two
hours driving around, looking for this school through the slashed crescents
of clear vision that the windshield wipers afforded us.  We barely made it
in time.  Mark pulled into the front parking lot.

"Hey, how are we going to find this guy?  He doesn't know us at all, and we
don't know what he looks like, either."

"All according to plan."  He reached into the back seat and pulled out two
cut strips of poster board, each with the name "Nick Patton" written across
in black marker.  "We just stand at the two doors and wait for him."

"Stand out there in the rain?"  Wet hair was always a pet peeve of mine.  I
just can't stand the way it feels, the way the water clumps it together
into squirmy little tentacles that slither across your forehead and neck.

"Oh, right."  He reached back and produced a hat.  "You can use this."

"You can't be serious."  It was a black pirate captain's hat from a
Halloween costume, the front adorned with a grinning skull and crossed
swords.

"Hey, if you don't want it, I'll wear it.  It's the only hat I've got.  I'm
offering it to you because I know you've got that weird wet hair thing."

I grabbed it and stuck it on, briefly checking my reflection in the
rearview mirror.  Yeah, it was as ridiculous as I had imagined.

"I like it."  Mark said, stepping out of the car and pulling his hood over
his head.  I didn't say anything, just followed him to my position by the
side door of the school.  "All right, if you find him, come get me.  I
don't want to be standing out here looking like an idiot holding this
dude's name while you've got him back in the car."

"Yeah, I'd hate for you to look like an idiot."  I said from under my
corsair cap.  He went off to man his station, leaving me, a fifteen year
old guy with a pirate hat and a sign, standing alone in the rain in front
of a high school.  On top of that, my nose had started running from the
cold.  But at least my hair was dry.

I stepped back a ways, allowing some space for everyone to get by, but
staying close enough so that this Nick guy would be able to see me.  As if
anyone could miss me.  I stuck out like...well, like a pirate in a high
school, would probably be the most accurate comparison.  After about ten
minutes, I heard a bell ring from inside, and people started trickling out.

It was at this point that I made an interesting psychological discovery:
The average adolescent does two things when he or she notices a guy with a
pirate hat and an "I wish I wasn't here" expression.  First, they get the
idea that they are somehow the first to think of doing something as witty
as shouting "Ahoy, matey!" or "Aye aye, Captain!", and second, they
immediately turn to those they are walking with and give them a
play-by-play of what they had just done, as in "Haha, I was all like,
'Ahoy, matey!' and pirate-boy was all like 'DUDE!' and - haha - what a
fuckin' dumbass!".  I tried my best to ignore it, but they just kept
coming.  More and more of them, all playing through the exact same script.
It was really starting to grate on my nerves after about the fifteenth
time.

Finally, when one of them came up and began to open his mouth, I'd had
enough.  Before he could get a word out, I snapped.  I raised my voice and
shouted, hoping to get the point across to everyone else as well.  "Yes,
I'm aware that I am wearing a pirate hat.  Avast, ahoy, shiver my fucking
timbers!  I get it!"

"Um..."  His eyes trailed down to the sign in my hand, then up to my hat,
then off to one side.

Oh no.

"You're...not Nick, are you?"

He nodded, glancing back up at my hat, no doubt wondering why a pirate was
holding a hand-lettered sign with his name.

"Um...sorry about the..."  I trialed off.  There was no way to recover from
that outburst, and I knew it.  I noticed his hair was wet.  It was hanging
heavily across his forehead, curled up into commas that interrupted his
eyebrows.  His cheeks had gone red from the cold, and a few drops of rain
had collected below his eyes, which were a deep brown.  I couldn't help
thinking that was a weird thing for me to notice.  I wasn't even sure of my
best friend's eye color.  "I'm Brandon.  Collier.  I'm here, uh..."  What
was I there for again?  "Oh yeah!  To give you a ride.  Back.  To Curson.
Well, not me, but my brother, since he can drive."  Wow.  I never
considered myself any kind of social butterfly, but this was a whole new
world of awkward.

He was still giving me that suspicious sideways look.  He had really big
eyes.  That must be why I noticed them.  If my eyes the size of softballs,
people would notice what color they were, too.  "You want me to just get in
your car?  Even though I've never seen you before?"

"Uh..."  Now that I thought about it, he'd have to be pretty stupid to just
jump into a car with strangers.  "One second.  Don't go anywhere, okay?"  I
turned and walked quickly around the corner of the building and flagged
Mark down with the poster board.  He ran over.  I looked back at Nick, who
had his head down to keep the rain out of his face.  A drop of water
dripped from the tip of his nose.  Did rain always do that?  Why didn't I
ever notice that before?

"Hey."  Mark walked over to where Nick was standing.  "You Nick?"  He
nodded.  "Cool, cool.  I'm Mark, this is Bran.  We're going to Curson.  You
coming with us?"

"I...don't know."  He looked between the two of us.  "I mean, I thought
some guy named Bill was going to pick me up."

"Nah, Bill sent us.  Kind of.  And with Bill's record, you're way better
off for it.  But if you don't trust us, you can call the police."

"What?"  He said.

"What?"  I echoed.

"Yeah, call the cops, give them a description of us and our car, and that
way if we kill you, they'll know it was us."

"That's the worst plan I've ever heard."  I said.  "Even if the cops catch
us, he'll be dead.  And what if he just dies in some freak accident?  Then
we'll get blamed."

"All the more reason for us to try to keep him safe."  Mark clapped me on
the shoulder, jostling my hat.  "Coming?"

Nick still looked a little nervous, but he nodded anyway.  "I've got to
pick something up first, so give me one second, okay?"  He went back into
the building.  I wondered if he planned to come back.  Or, if he was
actually calling the police with our descriptions.  Images flashed across
the backs of my eyelids: Composite sketches of myself, with a wild look in
my eyes, snarling from under the brim of a pirate hat.  A news reporter,
saying in that dull, objective lilt of theirs, "Caucasian male, mismatched
eyes, possibly fleeing the scene in a stolen Spanish galleon."

A few minutes passed, and a few more people shouted "Ahoy!" in my
direction.  Mark laughed and waved back to them.  I turned away.  After
what seemed like forever (though my watch said it had been ten minutes),
Nick returned, not with an armed escort but with a large frame, turned
toward himself.

"Ready to go?"  Mark asked.  He nodded, and followed us back to the car.
Mark asked him if he wanted to throw his stuff in the trunk, and he agreed.
We circled around as the trunk popped open, revealing a faceless department
store mannequin.

"Oh yeah."  Mark mumbled.  "I'll have to make some room..."

He reached in and took it out, revealing that it was cut off at the thighs.
He took it to the passenger seat and propped it up, snapping the seat belt
around it's waist.  "I got this last week.  Sorry, Bran, but this thing's
got you out-classed.  It's riding shotgun."

"It's...a torso."

"Yeah, isn't it great?  Oh, give me that hat."  He grabbed the captain's
hat from me before I had a chance to protest and dropped it onto the
dummy's head before stepping back to admire his work.  "Yeah-hah.  My first
mate.  And to think, some people waste money getting spinners or decent
sound systems for their cars, and just completely ignore the possibilities
that a mannequin offers."

I jumped into the back seat quickly, trying to get my now hatless self out
of the rain.  Once they had secured Nick's picture frame in the trunk, he
climbed in on the other side.

"Seatbelts, guys."  Mark called.  "If I have to stop suddenly, I don't want
one of you guys flying up here and knocking the head off of my co-pilot.
What do you think, should we stop to get something to eat before we leave,
so we can just make a straight shot back?"

I flashed him a thumbs-up, which he saw through the rearview mirror.

"Okay with you, Nick?"

"Yeah, sure."  He seemed to be doing his best to melt into the door.

Man, that outburst of mine must have really given the wrong impression.  I
mean, I can be a smartass sometimes, but I don't think I'm all that
intimidating.  I hoped he would see that, eventually.  I don't know why,
but he seemed like someone I could get along with.  It was strange, me
thinking like that, since I'm admittedly a pessimist.  My parents say that
I was cynical from the second I was born - that I got out, took a look
around, and said "Oh, great, now I have to deal with these people."  But
come on, how am I supposed to have an optimistic view of life when the
first thing they do is flip me upside-down and slap me on the ass?

I digress a lot when I get to thinking about stuff like that.  You've
probably noticed.  My teachers hate it, but they're not going to be reading
any of this, so I'm going to digress the hell out of it.

I wanted to say something, start up a conversation, but I didn't know where
to start.  Nick seemed really uneasy.  Not that I could blame him.  My
brother did just pull a body out of his trunk.  It seemed normal to me -
just another one of Mark's weird projects - but to Nick, who wasn't
familiar with my brother's..."eccentricities", that might just look creepy.

He looked over, and I remembered that it wasn't socially acceptable to
stare at someone while thinking about how you aren't starting a
conversation with them, so I turned to study the back of the seat in front
of me as we pulled out of the lot.  He really did have big eyes.

---------------------------

Comments?  Questions?  Email me at EleCivil@gmail.com