Jase's Return from Summer

“Alright,” Ali says to me as she drives back to the small town where we go to college, “I can see what you’re talking about.”

I grin. “Told you. My fam is crazy. You just spent a couple months with them, imagine a lifetime of, well, that.” I gesture wildly in the vague direction of the windscreen, hoping she can see without taking her eyes off the road. Ali’s a good enough driver to stay focused on the task rather than pay attention to me, but I really want her to get how much emphasis I’m putting on ‘that’.

She chuckles. She gets it. I love my brother and all them dearly, but since college started I’ve come to realize one simple thing. Like most drugs, they’re best taken in smaller doses. “At least your new in-law seems great,” she offers.

I sigh. That whole thing is a whole damned thing. Shaking my head, I say, “Yep. I’m mostly glad I could get her and mom in the same room this trip. They should be able to sway dad. Eventually.”

“Alright,” Ali replies. She knows most of the story, but I’m not sure exactly how much. She’s really smart. I’d told her the basics, so she and Therese could work together on the whole faking getting run under thing. Or, more so that she could back up Therese’s work and whatnot. I think. I’m not sure how much either did. Didn’t really ask. It felt rude in the moment, and then it was summer time. Whatever they did worked, and that was enough for me. And for them, so it seems. Anyways, she knew the basics beforehand and she’s real smart, so Ali may well have everything figured out by now. Or not, if she isn’t trying to figure everything out. Sometimes people are like that, you know. Not wanting to know things, because they think they shouldn’t, or it isn’t their place, or it’ll only cause problems, or whatever. People get some weird thought processes sometimes. I don’t know, maybe it’s because, ultimately, our thoughts are controlled by literal impulses inside our brain cages. A weird turn of phrase, impulse. I mean, on the one hand it’s like our strong, momentary desires, right? But it also is the little jolty-jolts of electricity, sometimes. And it means sudden pushes, and the force from those pushes. So, really, the suddenness is the key to it, right, that must be the whatsit, um root?

I only realize how long my thought-train has left the station when Ali actually looks away from the road and at me. “You alright there, babe?” she asks.

“Never,” I say with a smile, “Just got a little lost in my head.”

“And sober, too,” she says, “Impressive. Or worrying. Can’t really figure which.”

I chuckle. “Right. Sober,” I say, slightly nervous.

She understands instantly. “You are sober, right?”

“Yep, definitely,” I reply, far too fast. It’s a lie, and she knows it. Maybe I’ve been hanging out with Therese for too long, because there’s this little voice in the back of my head now that says it doesn’t really count as a lie.

“When?” she presses, “And you better not say you’ve been high since this morning, because I know you haven’t been eating any of the snacks.”

“The snacks WE packed, no,” I reply, “And don’t be ridiculous. It was at that gas station, in the back. The guy offered, and who am I to say no?”

Ali laughs at that. “Impulse control has never been one of your strong suits,” she admits.

“It’s one of the things you love about me,” I offer.

She furrows her brow as though to say, not really, but with her mouth she replies, “I mean…” Which is a much softer form of not really. Also a lie, probably. According to Therese, at least, and I trust Therese in all things human nature related. Even though I’m only seventy three percent sure she’s actually a human person. She beat the duck after all. Only a robot or a demon or a robot demon could do that.

“Do you think Therese is a robot demon maybe?” I ask to myself. But my vocal cords and mouth don’t listen to my brain and they go and make the word sounds anyways.

“Yep,” Ali confirms, “You’re definitely high.”

I shake my head. “Lies and slander. That’s a perfectly valid question for anyone to ask. You have met Therese, right?”

“A few times, yeah. And it’s not a perfectly valid question because Ter is, well, Ter.” Ali pauses as we turn off the highway. “I’ll be the first to admit, she’s not exactly perfectly normal, but she’s not as cold as people make her out to be sometimes.”

“Ooh, someone knows a secret,” I think aloud. “Is it really juicy, or just kinda juicy. Or is it not juicy and that’s why you’re just hinting at it. Or are you not going to tell me because it’s a supersecret secret and you swore a blood oath to Therese to keep it. Wait, that’s ridiculous, Therese wouldn’t make you swear a blood oath, she’d just give you one of them slightly concerned looks that make you feel like if you disappoint her you’ll wake up in a tub of ice with significantly less internal organs.”

Ali laughs. “As I said, you’re definitely high.”

I nod at that. “So, it’s internal organ protectiveness. Good to know. I’ll just ask Therese about it. We’re friends, you know, so there’s a chance she’ll just tell me,” I make a funny.

Her laughter grows even louder as we approach town. “Thanks, I needed a good joke.”

“Anytime, dear,” I reply. We head through town and across the bridge towards campus. “Hey, mind if I head off once we arrive? I’ll get all my stuff out the car tonight or tomorrow, but I wanna catch up with Lisette and Therese, then we can have a big whatsis with the League tonight at someplace that serves alcohol so we can listen to Ike’s nerdy science talk.”

She nods. “Alright, if you’re good with not having anything tonight, you can get your shit out of my car tomorrow around eleven.”

I smile wide. “You remember my usual sleep cycle. So cute.” She reaches over and slaps the back of my head lightly. “Ouch,” I spit out, still smiling. She shakes her head in my general direction as we pull into the lot.

She puts the car in park and we both get out. She goes to the trunk and I follow. “Go, have fun.”

“No promises. Love you. Don’t do any crimes I wouldn’t do while I’m gone.”

She smiles and jokingly furrows her brow. “There are crimes you wouldn’t do?” she muses, “You who broke into someone’s house our freshman year to bake pot brownies?”

“Nothing was broken, so ha. I used their spare key, so technically it was just felony trespassing,” I counter.

“Felony?” she asks.

“I used their property for something that was, at the time, technically less than legal,” I explain, “Upgrading it from a class one misdemeanor to a class six felony.”

“Good to know?” Ali muses as she unloads her bag.

“Anyways, love you. We’ll figure out the League meeting in the groupchat.” I kiss her then head off towards the woods. Pulling out my phone, I text Lisette and Ter. To the former, I ask, ‘bout to stare down a duck, wanna hang?’ To the latter, I text, ‘me and that duck have unfinished business. After that, you feel like waffles?’

Therese texts me back first. ‘I doubt you will end today without unfinished business with a waterfowl, but I would still enjoy some waffles. Text me when you’re heading to the WaHo.’ Rude. True, but rude. It requires patience, Therese had said. Well I’m patient. I have patience out my ass. As long as it doesn’t take too long, I can out patient a duck. Definitely. As I enter the smoking trail, Lisette replies. ‘Sorry, going into a meeting. See you tomorrow morning?’

Sitting down on the bench, I shoot back a quick, ‘no worries. Prolly not tomorrow, though, I'll be sleepy. Day after’ Then, I look across the pond. There, sitting on the water all smuglike, is my arch nemesis. The bane to my existence. Opening my tin and flicking my fingers for a light, I begin the contest of wills.

It takes fifteen minutes for me to lose the contest of wills. Shortly after I blink, the duck mocks me, flying off into outer space. Or the forest. I know it’s the latter, but the former is more poetic. And seeing that is important. I start to feel hungry. Wafflestime. I stand up and, after finishing my joint, I drop the roach back into my tin. For later use in one of my roach blunts. I text Therese to say I’m heading out of the woods and begin the walk down the trail.

The smoking trail feels like it was designed with us high college kids in mind. The path is wide and super obvious, the forest floor is almost entirely clear, and the trees have the most beautiful foliage. On a windy and paranoid day, maybe someone might be hiding up in the branches, but today is neither of those. And so, it is just the most lovely walk down the wide trail to the parking lot.

The Waffle House, on the other hand, is a Waffle House. Even on sober days, you need to watch out for people who get stabby. That said, no one would get stabby with us. Probably. Because we’re from the college. While they don’t know that our college teaches us how to fry peoples brains and shoot lightning, they do know people going to a private college are likely very rich and not good stabbing victims. Much less of a hassle to just stab a townie, or a travelling trucker. No rich family coming after you, no swearings of eternal vengeance, just an arrest and the newspapers saying, ‘That’s about right.’ I sit down at one of the booths and the waitress comes over. “I’ll take a coffee and an All-American breakfast or whatever the everything combo is called.”

The waitress nods. “You eating alone today Jason, or is one of your friends coming?” she asks. She’s clearly been working here at least a year, to recognize me. Or there are stories. I wonder if they’ve got stories about me, told in hushed tones in the kitchen or whatnot.

“My scary friend is coming,” I say, wondering if she’ll know who I’m talking about.

She almost does. “You mean the alcoholic kid who stares into your soul when she looks at you, or the big intense guy who’s always talking about physics and explosives and I’m pretty sure mentioned turning people into bombs with physics once.”

Her response tells me two things. One, she’s been a waitress here for a while, that discussion with Ike happened freshman year. And two, my friends are much scarier than I usually think. I mean, Ike’s practically a teddy bear most of the time, but he’s also definitely got big war criminal energy. Instead of answering her, I simply gesture to the door. Because, for all the normal human things Therese sometimes seems to lack, one thing she has got in spades is perfect dramatic timing. On cue, she walks through the door. “Marcy,” she says, completely blankly, “Good to see you again. I’ll have a coffee, black and a chocolate chip waffle.” Then, sitting down across from me, she asks, “How was your summer with Alina?”

“How was your summer at home?” I counter.

She gives a single chortle. “Why’d you want to meet here?”

“I was hoping to meet with Lisette first, but,” I begin.

She finishes my thought, “She is busy all day.”

“Yeah, awful rude of her, if you ask me,” I say.

Therese’s eyes crease ever so slightly, the barest hint of a smile on her face. “Fortunately,” she offers, “No one ever asks you. You’re far too impatient.”

“I can be patient,” I insist.

“Oh, then did you win today?” she asks, cocking her head ever so slightly as the coffee and waffles arrive. She opens her flask and dumps some of its contents into her coffee.

“Shut up,” I counter, taking up the syrup and drowning my waffle. “Duck’s a filthy cheater, that’s all.”