Across the Tracks Redux Ch. 01

(Just shy of a decade after Across the Tracks was first written, and I've decided that it needed to be redone. This was my first ever outing as a writer, and in many ways, was my first story I wrote outside of high school assignments. I feel that as a person, I've grown as a writer, I've grown in what I consider good storylines and plot, and I've decided that Across the Tracks deserved a rewrite. I love the characters and story I created with this, but there are certain parts of it that years later, I've wished I could change. I was literally eighteen when I wrote this, so there's quite a bit of stuff that just makes me... embarrassed that I want to change.

So, this will be the start of the rewritten story, featuring your favorite (and least favorite) characters once again. I don't know how much of it will be changed from the original, although I can guarantee that quite a bit of it will be much more fleshed out. I hope you enjoy this new take on an old story, and for those that also enjoyed the Hammer of the Gods story, it will also be getting the same treatment. If you don't like the new versions of either, my apologies. But a writer has to love their work, or it won't matter if anyone else does, and this is my attempt at making that happen.)

The loud jangle of an alarm cut through the darkness of the room, shattering the pre-dawn quiet. The flickering lights of the alarm clock read 04:30, and a large paw of a hand reached out from under the covers, tapping around the bedside table as if searching for it before the fingers grabbed onto the small clock and hit the button on top.

Otis rolled over in bed, away from the table, and fought the invasive thought of smashing his alarm clock by throwing it far across the room. But throwing it wouldn't get rid of the adult responsibilities of getting out of bed and going to work, so he controlled the urge. He grumbled in the cocoon of his covers, deciding that the last few moments of warmth were going to be something he took advantage of. It wasn't cold outside yet, but nothing was better than waking up in a warm bed. Finally, he opened his eyes and got out from under the covers, rubbing his hand across his face as he sat up on the edge of the bed and blinked slowly, full wakefulness finally coming to him.

He looked out his window, the whole reason he had picked his apartment, the open blinds facing east, pre-dawn light turning the night sky into a slowly lightening shade of purple and shades of blue.. Considering he had to be at the shop before the sun rose, it seemed a foolish reason to have picked the apartment now. But, the rent was good, and he had managed to even get some of that lowered by helping out the apartment maintenance man with repairs to some of the utilities and things around here. Not bad for someone his age, especially when most of the guys that he knew were still living at home.

He finally stood, padding across the thick rug that his grandfather had bought for him as a housewarming gift so that he could take his shower. As he turned the water on to let it warm up, he checked his face in the mirror, deciding to wait a little longer before he would shave. If he did it too much, it made his face break out, and he didn't want to relive the early puberty years of acne. As always, he looked past the blue eyes that women liked, past his strong jaw and high cheekbones, only seeming to notice that his nose was crooked and thick from being badly broken more than once, the fact that his hair was thinning, and the fact that he still carried a little extra weight. Genetics were just fantastic, huh? He thought to himself.

As he went to step in the shower, he bit back a sharp curse as he very quickly realized that the hot water was out. Again. That was going to have to be something he looked into fixing when he got home, but at the moment he just didn't have the time for it. He shivered his way through the cold shower, water like icy needles hitting his body, before finally being clean enough that he could justify being finished. He toweled off, hurrying to get dressed and get out the door. With a little hustle, he'd have time to grab a coffee and breakfast sandwich before work.

* * * * * *

Ariel prayed to whatever god was listening, not even knowing if there was a god of mechanics or cars, but promising whoever existed, even if it was a Catholic saint or something, that she would start regularly praying to them if her car would just stop breaking down. With a barely suppressed growl of frustration, she slammed the gear shift into position, since that kind of rough talk was the only thing it seemed to understand. She made another noise of frustration when the car seemed to grind and groan underneath her.

I just should have went with an automatic, she thought to herself, the car starting to make another grinding noise that was worrying her, But no, I wanted to prove something and went with a manual.

Suddenly, her gauges started to act up, the engine temperature shooting to peg itself, oil pressure doing the same. It was like a scene out of Poltergeist, all of her emergency symbols flashing across the panel, before suddenly the car just died, everything reversing from pegged to not showing any response at all.

She couldn't help herself, screaming the word fuck as her car didn't seem to have any power anymore, but a faint glimmer of hope brightened up her otherwise shitty day. Her power steering was out, but she managed to plant her feet against the floorboard for leverage and turn her wheel over, the coasting car coming to a halt about fifty feet away from the big garage doors of the convenient mechanics shop.

* * * * * * *

Otis was, in a word, fucking jamming. He was the only mechanic in the shop so far today, which usually would make him angry, but there was music. A lot of music. He had a few little jobs to finish up, mostly of the fit and finish variety, so he could just do whatever for a little bit. He was taking a sip of coffee, dancing to some Aggrolites, when he heard an obviously female voice scream in frustration during a break between songs.

He stepped out the front of the shop, looking around for a moment as he took a sip from his coffee mug, before he deduced through excellent detective skills that the 1992 Dodge Neon with either white smoke or white vapor coming from under the hood, being driven by a woman, might just be the source of the noise that had broken up his calm morning. He set his mug down, walking down the sidewalk before finally cupping his hands around his face and calling out.

"Hey you need some help?"

She was digging in her purse for her cellphone when she heard someone call out. The River District, as it was called, wasn't the nicest place in town, but traveling through it usually cut about fifteen minutes off her drive home. There was a guy, standing a few feet away on the sidewalk, and judging by his overalls with grease on them, he probably worked at the mechanics shop she was trying to get to. Convenience seemed to be the name of the game today, and she had a feeling she was going to have to track down that patron saint of mechanics before it was all said and done. She rolled down the window, scowling as it got stuck halfway down, but still managed to speak.

"Yes!" She flushed at how loud that was, "I could definitely use some help. Can you help me get it into the parking lot?"

Since Otis had already thought he was going to be helping her, he just strolled forward to the back of the car, placing his hands on the trunk lid and getting ready to push. As he walked towards her, it had taken a little conscious thought for Ariel to not lock the doors. He had looked normal sized from however many feet away on the sidewalk, but the closer he came, the bigger he seemed to be, until it felt like he was gigantic.

She hadn't seen many men that were built like him. Where most of the guys she worked with or knew were tall and 'athletic', which she felt just meant that they had abs and spent a lot of time making sure their biceps were big, he was built like a bear. Tattoos seemed to cover most of his visible skin, and his ears were stretched in a way that normally would have grossed her out, but seemed to fit him. His arms and shoulders seemed to stretch his coveralls tightly, but in a way that suggested strength and not just fat, even if he had a bigger belly. It all served to just make him look stout, like an oak tree or something.

Otis could almost feel her nervousness as she looked at him when he walked by the car, and he couldn't blame her. He worked in an area that wasn't known for being a great part of town, he was covered in tattoos, he was a really big dude, and she was a lone woman. If he was her size and was dealing with someone as big as him, he'd be scared too. Even if he didn't like being judged like that, or so quickly, he could understand it. And when he remembered his own reputation and past, he wouldn't blame anyone for being scared of him. If anything, it was probably more prudent to be scared. He called out directions on which way to turn the wheel, setting his feet and pushing hard to get the car moving.

Ariel followed his directions, but was still kind of amazed at how strong he was. If she had to push her car, then it would have taken forever. If she had even gotten it to move. And if she couldn't have moved it, she would have had to call a tow truck just to move it fifty feet or so, and that would have added to all of the other costs that this was no doubt going to have. As he pushed the car into an empty bay, he stepped next to her window and spoke, voice deep and calm.

"Let me get my boss from the office, and we'll see what we can do to get you back on the road." He smiled easily as he said it, a chipped front canine making the smile a little roguish.

Ariel leaned back in here seat and watched the man move towards the office door. He moved gracefully for his size, and allowed a lot of room for his movements as if he thought he would knock something over on accident. He had a surprisingly mellow voice, deep and smooth with a lingering rasp at the back of it. She tried to understand why she was taking so much interest in this guy that she had just met, arguably on one of the worst days she had had in a moment. Maybe it had something to do with him being so helpful. Her mother said that one of Ariel's biggest problems was that she would always be way too interested in men that were nice to here, but she didn't really think that was an awful thing. Thinking about some of her old flames though, maybe it was.

Otis walked into the office area, discovering that the owners office door was locked, and the counter girl was nowhere to be found. He wondered if the two knew about each others STI's, or if that was part of the reason they were getting together. Kind of a 'well, we both have something so less worries', kind of arrangement. Or, they could have just had protected sex with whoever had given them the crotch cooties that they had. But that was neither his circus, not his monkeys, so he would just go deal with the customer they seemed to have no choice but to have right now. Maybe he would even get her car fixed before Carl finished and came out into the shop to get in everyone's way.

Ariel was leaning against her car, toying with her phone briefly. She had texted her supervisor, letting him know what was going on, and she had also texted her parents, so that they wouldn't get worried and to let them know that she was probably going to need to use her emergency card for this. Since it was for emergencies, she felt like this counted as such. The large man came back into the garage, explained to her that while his boss was busy, he could still get started on her car, just so they could at least try and diagnose what was wrong with it.

"If you want, there's a waiting room. We have some vending machines and coffee, or you can sit out here, I guess?" The look of confusion as he said that was priceless, like he hadn't meant to. Truly, Otis hadn't meant to offer that, but it had already been said and he would feel like shit taking it back. And of course, she decided she wanted to sit out here on the stool next to his work bench. Perfect.

For the first time since he was young and under the watchful eyes of his father, Otis became nervous to work on a vehicle. There was the fact that usually, customers didn't watch you work on their vehicles. When it was with his Dad, Otis had always been nervous because he was scared of messing up, of not making his father proud of him, all those sort of reasons. In this case, it seemed to just be because he had someone in his space. And it didn't help that it was a girl that was pretty, beautiful even, and she was sitting in his space. Which also made him nervous about if his space was clean or not, and how weird some of his stickers on his tool box were.

He turned on his penlight, humming to himself as he looked under the hood. It looked like the problem was a broken serpentine belt, for starters. But she said the transmission was grinding, so he was going to need to look at that as well, and if he was lucky it would be something that he could fix easily. If he wasn't lucky, it was going to be a few days of work. There was also the possibility that the broken belt had done other things to the car, but he would figure it out.

It was quiet in the shop, and as a chatty person, that was driving Ariel nuts. She didn't want to play with her phone, or ask about music, because maybe he never listened to music, but the silence was just kind of... terrible to deal with. So she finally decided to just ask him a question. That was a good idea, right? Questions were always great.

"So why do you have those big holes in your ears?"

Otis continued working before he realized she was talking to him, and even then it took him a minute to process everything. It was such a strange question, completely out of nowhere. Usually, someone would ask your name first, but she just went straight for it, apparently. He looked at her, blinking for a moment before he spoke.

"Ummmm....Sorry I didn't catch that. What did you say?"

Ariel repeated her question, resisting the urge to giggle. He had looked adorable when he looked at her, for all the world blinking like an owl from a cartoon before realizing that she was talking to him, and asking him a question about himself. She wondered if she could make him do that again? She shouldn't tease him, but there was a chance that he could make her laugh again, and that was always a plus.

He carefully thought about his answer. Otis was the sort of guy that liked to think about the things that he was trying to say before he said them, because he figured that was the easiest way not to fuck up. No confusion, no missteps, just think your words out. He didn't realize that for someone impatient like her, it just seemed like he was ignoring her question and in a way her. Just about the time she was about to tell him to forget it and go to the waiting room, he spoke.

"I was about thirteen or fourteen when I started, and I got my first tattoo about the same time. Some stuff in my life had went really bad, and everyone wanted to be nice to me, or was trying to be nice to me." He laughed softly, turning and grabbing his water bottle from the table, taking a drink from it, "But it was that fake niceness, you know? Like they were just being nice to me because something bad had happened, and they had to, but they didn't really care about being nice beyond that." He shrugged, getting back to going over her car, "So I started to change how I looked, and who I was friends with. Started getting into fights, and getting tattoos. And people started to leave me alone, and I didn't have to worry about fake people and them lying about being nice anymore."

He stopped talking again, lapsing into a comfortable silence. For a long time, he had learned to be alone, learned to deal with the silence. His two best friends hadn't had great home lives either, so they were quiet sometimes too. It just worked out for them, and he carried that into his adulthood. His grandfather was the same way, and what he could remember of his dad, he was a quiet man too. They had spent a lot of time working on things together, the garage quiet except for the movement of tools and the murmured requests for a tool or some help real quick.

For Ariel, the silence wasn't comfortable. She hated silence. Her home life wasn't terrible, but it was cold. Silent. Quiet. All the time, it was quiet. It made it feel like the walls were looming, closing in, choking her with nothing but the lack of sound. She suddenly felt the same without any noise, and since he didn't seem to be ready to offer any more on his own, she spoke again.

"So what did you go through that made you want to do that?"

Otis had long ago came to terms with his father's death. It had been horrible when he was thirteen. Life shattering, destroying so many of his hopes and dreams, so many things he believed in. But he was an adult now, and he had the therapy to help him get over the grief. His father was a hero. That was more what Otis held onto, even if sometimes it felt like he had forgotten the small details about his father, just remembering the hero and not the man. He had talked to some other people his age, mainly on message boards and that sort of thing, and it seemed to be a problem a lot of them had if their fathers died in the line of duty while their kids were young. The man got pushed out of their memories, and was just replaced by the hero that everyone talked about.

"My father was a firefighter. And I was proud of my dad for that, always have been. When I was thirteen years old, my father went on a firerun. Not a big deal. Just a small thing, no visible flames, just some smoke. The kind of thing that they'e done a thousand times before." His wrench was turning slowly, remembering the stories that he had been told by other men, members of his fathers crew, the only connection he had to what had really happened that night. "My dad went into the house to check to see if there were any occupants, or if he could see anything with the thermal imaging camera to find out where the smoke was coming from."

The wrench wasn't moving anymore, and he was thinking about that night. What he knew, what he had been told. How horrible it was to wake in the morning, expecting to see your father home, and instead seeing two men from the department who came in a red car. Moisture started to gather in the corner of his eyes, making them shiny, but he didn't really feel it. He was just caught up in the memory, still speaking.

"He called for a ladder over to a window on the second story, and as they were getting it over there, they started seeing fire." He wasn't looking at Ariel, but the young woman had a look of horror and terrible knowing on her face, arms wrapped around herself as she fought to get breath. "He handed a girl, I think she was my age, out to the guys on the ladder, and then something happened. They said it became so hot inside the house, everything basically burst into flame, even the air." He wiped his face, the moisture wetting his sleeve, "He didn't make it, but she did."

There was a clatter from where she was sitting, and as he looked up, he watched as her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she started to slide off the tool. He banged his own head on the hood, but managed to catch her in time, lowering her to the floor instead of her just smacking into it from falling. He was at a loss for what to do, but he grabbed a thing of paper towels off his workbox and tilted her head, setting it down on the paper towels like it was a pillow.

Otis then lifted her legs up, like he had always been told to do and seen done at the gym, because apparently getting the legs above the heart was what helped people get back from fainting. Especially since he didn't have any smelling salts. Which he wasn't even sure was a thing that would be good to use right now. This would be the perfect time for someone else to walk in, he thought to himself. The large mechanic, holding a girls legs up, while she was passed out on the floor. Perfect.