Not Overly Concerned Ch. 03

III: Numbers and Letters

(Tuesday)

Not having bothered to set her alarm, Anna woke a bit later Tuesday. Creating the Teacher's Assistant position for Anna had required some creative paperwork on the part of the department head, and to fit it into the budget, Anna only worked Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The disability money Uncle Sam sent her for being blind allowed her to get by working just the three days, which suited her just fine. Gave her a lot of time to work on her writing.

She rolled out of bed and found her jeans where she had left them on the floor. As vastly oversized as they were, there was no need for hitching and shimmying around to get them on. Just had to make sure she didn't have both her legs in one pant leg. Cinching her belt, she walked out to the kitchen, not bothering to open her eyes yet.

Eric was refilling his coffee.

"Still here?" she asked.

"On my way out." Eric replied, snapping a lid onto his travel mug.

Anna nodded. She opened an overhead cupboard and brought down the Oreos.

"Have a good day." she offered, hearing Eric moving to the apartment door.

"Anything's possible. See you later, Rave."

Eric closed the door behind him.

Anna stood, munching on a cookie, mind wandering. When she had finished the cookie, she went to the sink and splashed cold tap water in her face. Rather than drip on the floor on her way from the sink to where the paper towel roll was mounted, she used the front of her shirt to dry off.

Feeling more awake, she fixed herself a tall glass of coffee. Instead of milk she added a generous measure of Bailey's. Taking up the coffee and a handful of cookies, she moved into the living room. Partway along the wall shared with her bedroom was her computer desk, attended by a decrepit rolling office chair.

Leaning across the chair, Anna carefully placed the glass of coffee and the cookies on the left side of the desktop before pulling the chair out to sit. She pressed the power button and sipped her coffee while the machine booted up. When it was up and running, she found the folder which held her text files and opened her latest work in progress. Her being able to use the computer this way was thanks to a basic screen reading program Eric had installed some time ago. Any time the mouse-controlled cursor passed over text, the program's poorly rendered electronic 'voice' would issue forth from the speakers - reading aloud for her.

It was necessary to move the mouse frustratingly slowly when reading large portions of text. Otherwise the stilted electronic voice became unintelligible or skipped words. Anna often had to stop and remind herself that at one time she had faced the prospect of reciting her stories into a tape recorder and finding someone willing to transcribe the recordings. She wasn't particularly fond of listening to her own voice on tape, let alone getting someone else to do it. Not to mention the fact that she just generally hated having to depend on others any more than she already did.

Scanning the last page, she let her mind disengage. The setting of the story seeped in, coloring her thinking. Personalities and the back stories behind them rose gradually to the forefront of her memory. Letting herself mentally percolate a bit, she lit a cigarette before beginning to type.

***

Eric arrived at work at 8:12. Twelve minutes late. And yet, the shop was still locked up. Sarah was supposed to be in early to open the place.

Then again, Eric reflected, she's sleeping with the boss. She could pretty much get away with making up her own schedule. Aaaand it looks like she's giving it a shot.

Eric leaned against the building. He drank his coffee. Had a cigarette. Waited.

He was just about to try calling someone when Sarah finally showed. Without even speaking to Eric she unlocked the door and preceeded him in. While she plunked herself down behind the coutner, Eric went to the back to check the backlog.

There was an old desktop rig in for cleaning. And a custom order that might actually take a couple hours. The client wouldn't be expecting the special order for a couple days though. It was shaping up to be a boring day.

He passed some time sorting through the creeping mess occupying the rear third of the junk room. An hour and a half later he discovered a stack of milk crates he had never seen before. Pulling an old SVG cable from the top crate, Eric noticed gaps in the exterior coating where the core glinted through. Looking closely he saw tiny tooth marks. He sighed.

Lifting the first milk crate aside, he warily eyed the contents of the next one down. Anything useful was hidden in a nest of thoroughly shredded cardboard and paper. Droppings were evident. He replaced the top crate and stepped back.

Well, that was enough cleaning. Time for a smoke. He went out the back door, propping it open with the brick that was left to one side of the door for just that purpose. Lighting a cigarette, he leaned on the wall next to the door and took in the view. Custom Computers and Repair and the other three shops on the strip shared one long, if not overly large, back parking lot. Along the far side of the lot ran part of the chain link fence surrounding a self service storage unit business. The air was cool, but not unpleasant. A few white clouds scudded lazily across a sunny blue sky.

Eric had taken two pulls on his cigarette when he overheard the desk phone ring. He gave the world in general a 'go figure' shrug. After a last, long drag he crushed the butt underfoot and headed back in.

When Sarah hung up, she turned to yell for Eric and flinched, finding him standing next to her.

"JE-sus! You jumped the shit outta me."

Eric waited a moment, then asked;

"Business call?"

"Oh, yeah."

She tore a page from a notepad and handed it to him.

"Some guy. Owns a coffee shop or somethin'. Wants to set up an internet thing so the customers can use the internet." she explained.

Eric nodded thoughtfully.

"Do you know if he has all the equipment he needs or if I should bring it with me?"

Sarah shrugged.

"I don't know. He didn't really say."

It was the kind of thing she should have asked. And he could call her on it, but it would be a waste of time and would likely just leave him more annoyed than he already was. It rarely helped matters to argue with the kind of person who was underqualified to answer the phone. So instead he just looked at her for a long moment, face expressionless, before returning to the back.

"I'm taking the van." he called over his shoulder.

He loaded a couple boxes with everything he could conceivably need and used a dolly to take it out to the one and only company vehicle. The boxes he stacked in the passenger seat of the old van. The dolly he slid up into the back.

It took a couple tries to get the engine to turn over, and in passing Eric hoped that it wouldn't start again when he was finished with this job. He'd just leave the heap of junk at the coffee shop and call a cab to take him home. Probably more likely the brakes would go and get him killed.

At the coffee shop, the owner met him at the door. He introduced himself as 'Just Craig,' giving Eric's offered hand a violent shaking. 'Just Craig' insisted on telling him all about how the shop wasn't scheduled to open until the following week because of ongoing renovations. He seemed intent on reciting an itemized list of said rennovations, despite the fact that they were walking throught the midst of the renovation crew, hard at work.

Eventually Eric managed to steer Craig's chatter toward the reason for Eric's visit. A password accessible internet network that would support the traffic of a dozen or so customers on laptops. Basic security. Preferably all designed to be simple and low maintenance. Craig's tech-saviness became spotty beyond using alt+tab to switch between windows.

Pretty much all the hardware was already there, but Eric hauled the boxes in from the van anyway. He could probably have everything up and running in half an hour, but there was no hurry. After hooking the modem and router up to Craig's desktop and the phone line, Eric checked his email. He spent the next hour looking over some code a friend had sent him embedded in image files.

When he came up for air, the shop was conspicuously quiet. Everyone had left at some point. He checked his watch. Might be they took an early lunch break. He decided to go ahead and set up the network before getting something to eat. For the time being he set the password as 'password.' He'd change it to something of Craig's choosing later, while giving him a run down of the system and how to use it.

That done, Eric tore a sheet from a pad of stationary bearing the header

Coastal Coffee and Muffin Shoppe

free internet access

He scribbled 'Out to lunch. Be back soon.', and left it on the keyboard. He left the boxes of gear behind when he went out to the van. If someone walked off with them... oh well. Fuck it. If the boss ever even noticed the stuff missing, Eric would just say he got jacked for it. The idea that a thief would take the gear but decide they didn't even want the van wasn't much of a stretch.

After lighting a smoke, Eric tried the ignition. Naturally, the engine turned over fine... but the radio spat static briefly before cutting out.

"Uh-huh." Eric mumbled, shifting into gear.

A few minutes up the road he turned off onto Miller Street. There was a big U-shaped strip mall he had seen, but at which he had never stopped.

He drove around to park outside a Chinese take-out place. The food at Seven Dragons turned out to be the quintessential, stereotypical Chinese take-out. When he had eaten his fill, Eric pocketed the fortune cookie and stepped out for a smoke.

While he smoked he walked, looking in through the windowed storefronts. A dollar store. A pawn shop. A jewelry store. He stopped when he came to a tattoo and piercing parlour. He finished his cigarette and flicked it out into the parking lot.

According to his watch, he'd been out to lunch for just over half an hour. Well, lots of people took hour lunch breaks. Today, he was going to be one of them. It felt like a good day to pass the time in an offhand way.

Inside the tattoo parlour the walls, where unobstructed, were plastered with artwork and polaroids of actual previous customer's tattoos. Eric drifted slowly along one wall until he came to a counter running along part of it. The countertop was stacked with big D-ring binders loaded with a similar mix of sample art and pictures of actual ink work.

There had been noone present in the front when Eric had entered. Perusing the binders, his awareness of the room soon narrowed. Eventually something on his left got through and he turned his head distractedly.

An employee was trying to be helpful. What had she just said? 'Hello?' he thought. Probably her third try.

"Hey." he ventured.

She was short. Closer to five foot even than to five-six, by the look. Her straight black hair was cut shoulder length, with bangs cut just above her eyes. Heavy eyeliner under large blue-gray eyes. A small, slightly upturned nose over now-smiling lips.

He assumed she wore pants of some sort, but at this angle he was trying not to give the impression that he was looking down the front of her little cut-off, strappy shirt thing. Wardrobe aside, she looked like she belonged in a shop like this. Even from his vantage, Eric could see several tattoos and piercings on her.

"Hey. Welcome back. Anything special I can help you with?"

"No, I was just looking. Killing time," and for no particular reason he added, "I'm on an extended lunch break."

"Extended?"

Eric nodded vaguely.

"Uh, yeah... I work at a computer place. I'm out on a call - putting in a router in a place down the street. Nobody looking over my shoulder. So..."

"So... extended lunch." she nodded, smiling again, "Nice."

Eric continued flipping slowly through the binder.

"You military?" the young woman asked after a moment.

"No. Not anymore."

"Oh. I thought, with the short hair and ...," she waved a hand vaguely, "the way you stand."

He nodded.

"I was Navy."

"Ah... is there a good story that goes with that scar?" she indicated Eric's left hand.

The thick line of a scar curled up around the edge of his hand. It ended just shy of a pink crescent which curled around the outer edge of the base of his little finger. He brought his hand up and tilted it to give a better view.

"There is a story, but it's not from when I was in." he replied.

"Really?"

"Yeah, this is from before I signed up," thinking back he got a bemused look, "I was in a mosh pit. Hadn't noticed there were broken bottles on the floor - until I got knocked on my ass. Put this hand out to catch myself. Chunk of glass sitting up sideways went in almost to the bone."

"Wow. Wouldn't have guessed that was, like, your scene. No offense."

Eric nodded.

"Sure you don't have anything in mind?" she asked.

"Yeah - maybe another time. My lunch break is already pretty extended."

"Let me give you a card before you go." she said, hurrying back to what Eric guessed was the piercing room.

The girl returned and handed him a business card with a post-it note stuck on. Written on the note was a time, a date and an address.

"A couple weeks from Friday - the date is on there - there's a rave going on at that address. It's an old warehouse. I'll be there. I know the guys who set these things up.

If you feel like some excitement you should come out. You can get just about anything recreational at these things if you ask around. I go partly just to advertise for the shop - pass out business cards."

"I'll check my schedule." Eric replied noncomitally.

"Well, call me if you need help with directions. My number's on the back of the card. I'm Shy, by the way." she reached out a hand to shake.

"It doesn't show." Eric replied, deadpan.

Her hand was small, but her grip surprised him.

"No. That's what people call me. It's my initials; S-H-Y. I don't like my first name, so..."

"That explains it. I'm Eric." he replied, unobtrusively checking the back of the business card.

"If you change your mind about getting some new ink, give me a call."