FSE

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CHAPTER 2

CAFFEINE DEFICIENCY

With one final grunt of effort, Frank managed to settle his new table into place without scuffing the floor any more than it already was. He took a step back to admire his handiwork. The table isn't too big, barely enough for two people to use, but that mattered little to a bachelor. Except for a small drawing made in pen on one of the legs, the table looked new. The wood matched the floor well enough. There were cute little carvings of ram's horns around the edges, what had originally caught his eye. He worried they might seem a little "off" in a man's apartment but, again, there was no one else but him to notice. The whole thing was sturdily built, with thick wood.

The thing was almost too heavy for him to get up the stairs by himself, but he had managed it with a clever trick. Smiling to himself, he thought back on his brilliance with a swollen ego. It had certainly been impressive. Enough so that he had even gotten a few words of praise from Adrianne, who watched his whole adventure with rapt attention. She had been cheering as if watching a magic show, but all he had really done was...

The smile quickly faded when he realized he couldn't seem to remember what the trick had been. He stared at the table again. How did he afford such a nice table? Where did he get it? Frank looked around the room, a confused buzzing sounding in the back of his head. His eyes fell on the bed. Now that he thought of it, he couldn't remember getting up this morning either. With sudden, acute clarity, Frank came to understand that he was dreaming. Frank had never had a lucid dream before. He stood in the center of the room expectantly. Nothing happened. With a frown, he kicked hard at the table. Some part of his mind told him that that should have hurt, but he felt nothing.

Frank had expected the dream to warp somehow now that he was aware it was a dream. Or maybe he would attain the power of flight. Get into a fight with an alien. Have the room fold and become two-dimensional. Anything other than just standing around in his own room. "Fuck this," he said, or maybe thought. It was hard to tell. There was a feeling of separation between intent and action, between sensation and reality. It was as if everything he felt had to be interpreted from somewhere outside his body, then be relayed back to him by a second party who had never experienced touch or sound for themselves. At least that was interesting, kind of. Frank suddenly became aware that something was behind the wall to his left, just above a light switch.

He wasn't sure how he became aware of it. He couldn't see it; he just knew it was there. It wriggled behind the wall, trying to get closer to him. The creature had a black carapace, shining in an odd way despite the lack of any light inside the wall. It crawled along, digging towards him with many legs, each seeming to move independently of the others. The image he had in his mind, more of a fuzzy suggestion than anything concrete, was massive. That thing could easily tear down that wall or even the whole apartment. If fact, there was no way such a hulking frame should not have fit inside the wall in the first place. The buzzing in Frank's head intensified the more he thought of the creature, until he began to recognize meaning within the noise. Not words, but still with definite meaning and intent. He could feel it calling to him, demanding to be let out of its prison. Demanding to be returned to its rightful owner. Demanding to be used.

Frank wondered for a moment if this, the feeling inside him now, was how any of those actors in horror movies felt when they watched their own films. After all, it was hard to be scared when you already knew the person on screen wasn't really going to get hurt. It was just a dream, after all. He could get his head split open and not feel a thing. He might even live through it, a lucid actor flubbing his death scene in what was supposed to be a nightmare. That would have been a cool dream, to be in his own horror movie. Making a prosthetic of his entire body. Screaming as Kane Hodder appeared around the corner wearing a hockey mask. Getting covered head to hoof in fake blood. Was it possible to daydream inside a dream?

Frank sat on the dream table and looked at a spot on the ceiling. "Am I that bad?" Another of those spoken/unspoken thoughts. "Dreaming about getting a new table? I mean, I wasn't under the impression that I was going to be an international spy when I graduated, but this? Is this just what happens when you become an adult? You immediately become some boring dick?" He turned to the place above the light switch, where he knew the creature to be. "And what are you supposed to be, exactly? You remind me of a centipede, in a way. Do I have some unconscious fear of centipedes? I can't imagine why. I've only met two, and they were both nice enough folks." The creature only responded with continuing demands to be used in some way. Or maybe Frank hadn't said any of that out loud. It didn't matter either way, because the dream was just ending.

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Frank groggily opened his eyes and grabbed his phone from underneath his pillow. Five-thirty. Another thirty minutes before the alarm went off. He probably wouldn't have enough time to get back to sleep, so he just got up. He walked to his kitchen to make coffee. He had pulled down a cup and set it on the counter before remembering that he no longer owned a coffee maker. That was unacceptable. Even as broke as he was, he had to get a coffee maker. He did some quick calculations in his head. There were some real low-grade coffee makers at Wal-Mart, ones that didn't go for more than $20. Was there a Wal-Mart near here? He'd ask someone in the apartments when he came across them. Adrianne had seemed eager to help the new guy, so he hoped he could run into her again soon.

Without coffee, Frank paced about the room to force some alertness into his bones. He was still dressed in nothing but his underwear. After getting his phone set up on the Wi-Fi, he had looked at the weather for the next week or so. He'd be able to sleep dressed like this for the next few days at least. With nothing to keep his attention as he paced about the room, his eyes moved lazily over the room. It's the same as my dream. Down to the dust in the corners, he though. He had spent no more than three hours awake in this room last night, the exhaustion from the trip in putting him down early. Most of that time had been spent on his phone. Had he committed this place to memory so completely, so soon? Awake, he felt like he couldn't recall what the cabinets behind him looked like, and he had seen those just a few seconds ago. Maybe there was some kind of subconscious memory that came out clearer in dreams. He knew nothing about the topic, and so made a mental note to look into lucid dreams when he had woken up a bit more.

He still hadn't done that two hours later, when he was dressed and sitting on the corner of his bed, watching videos about whatever happened to be recommended to him last. He closed the phone and put away his headphones. This empty little room was beginning to get on his nerves. He had hoped that his initial drowsiness would go away after a couple of minutes, maybe an hour. The long ride here yesterday had taken more out of him than he had thought. Grumbling to himself, Frank stepped out of his room and made his way down creaking steps to the common.

Mary was there, once more sitting on one of the green couches and watching action shlock. She was joined by a polecat, dressed in a stained white shirt and jeans, who seemed more interested in his phone than the show. Mary gave him a wave when she saw he had come in. "Hey Frank. This is Morty," gesturing to the only other person in the room. "Adrianne's husband. Mort, this is Frank, he just moved into 204." Mort looked up from his phone just long enough to give a clipped "Hey, nice to have met ya," before going back to the tiny screen. He seemed upset with something, but Frank couldn't tell what. He gave Mary a questioning look, but all she had to give was a shrug before turning back to the action.

Frank grimaced. He felt like he had to ask where he could get a coffee machine, but with both other residents having already dismissed him and gone back to staring fixedly at their respective screens, he felt nervous about interrupting. These people shared a roof with him but were still total strangers and probably wouldn't appreciate being bothered with his minor problems. He felt like he had missed an opportunity to ask during the introduction, but the whole thing had been over so quick. Was there still a chance to ask before it would be awkward? No, he had been thinking about it too long. The moment had passed.

Exhaling heavily through his nose, he made for the exit. "Ah, hold the door for me, please!" Frank turned to see a wolverine hurrying towards him. She seemed to be a couple years his senior and of a comparable height to himself, not counting the horns. As she approached, a sharp-toothed smile split her face. "Oh! You are the new guy, yeah? It's a pleasure," she said as she hustled through the door. "You have a car? You had better hurry up if not, the bus will be here in fifteen and it's a ten-minute walk to the stop." Without thinking, Frank follows her out and takes up stride beside her.

Two minutes later, walking down a sidewalk with grass sprouting through cracks every third step, Frank is wondering whether he needs to take the bus to get to a store that sells coffee makers. He would rather avoid spending money where he didn't need to, even if it was only a dollar or two. He thinks about asking the wolverine but can't work up the nerve to ask her when he doesn't know her name. Momentum seems to carry Frank along with the wolverine until they spot the stop up ahead, a glass box with a bench underneath and decorated with advertisements for a superhero movie that had come out during the summer. Frank didn't even think it was still playing, unless they kept movies in the theater longer down here.

Frank's companion sat down on the bench and pulled out a book. Frank still wasn't comfortable asking this woman any questions but knew he would feel worse if he followed her onto the bus without knowing where he was going. Frank took a deep breath. "Um, excuse me, Miss?" he said. The woman placed her book into her lap, keeping place with a thumb. "Yes? Do you need something?" She had a pleasantly high-pitched voice, with a hint of an accent that Frank couldn't place. "I'm Frank. I just moved into The Homestead. I-" An embarrassed squeak came out of the wolverine before he could continue. "Oh God, I'm sorry. I haven't introduced myself, have I? I'm always in a rush in the mornings. I'm Sara, it's nice to meet you. Are you heading off to work too?"

Sara's speech had an energy in it that made Frank jealous. Even with coffee, he would never be in such a good mood so early in the morning. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Frank got back to his original question. "There's a pawn shop two doors down from where I work. They might not have anything, but if they do, it'll be cheap. Failing that, there's a Target about four blocks down. That's where I got mine." Sara gave an easy set of directions to the Target from where she worked, then warned about a certain brand of coffee maker that had broken down on her in the past. "Where do you work, anyway?", Frank asked. Sara leaned forward and looked down the street to see their ride coming in. "Here we go. Come on, I'll talk to you aboard."

Once seated on the bus, Frank was displeased to find that Kansas bus seats had the same piss problem as the ones in Delaware. While Sara was still paying her fee, Frank placed his hand on the seat. Not actually wet, it just felt like it. Frank's level of disgust dropped just the barest amount. A car. That was the big goal for the moment. How long would that take, with his current pay? No more than a couple months, he hoped.

Sara came and took the seat next to him. "So," she said, "what do you feel like talking about?" She leaned toward him, her shoulder brushing up against him every time the bus shook, which was often. "You were going to tell me about your job," Frank said. She smiled at him, obviously glad for the chance to talk about herself. "I work in a salon. It's a decent sized place, and I'm pretty busy most days. We take all kinds, you know. I can even work with feathers. It's not a girly place either. We get plenty of male customers. You should come in sometime, ask for me personally. You could use a trim." She beamed at him she spoke, but Frank had to wince slightly when she mentioned a trim. It was much more humid down here than he was used to, and he hadn't known what an effect it would have on his wool. It had taken him longer than usual to get it under control this morning, and still stuck out at odd places in such a way that he had been unable to shake the look of having just rolled out of bed despite having been up for hours at his point. Up for hours, and only just after eight. A long day already.

"A salon, huh?", Frank said, already struggling to fill the silence. "You must meet some interesting people, working there. Tell me some more about it." The strange phrasing and tight nervousness seemed to have been missed by Sara, or otherwise graciously ignored. Sara sat back for a moment, humming in thought, before remembering something interesting enough to be worth sharing.

Frank was regaled with a story of a supposedly ordinary chimpanzee who had come in. He had caught Sara's notice because he dressed in much nicer brands than would normally be worn around that neighborhood. A slim-fitting black suit with a blue tie, both Gucci. The glasses, thick-rimmed in black and much too round, were Ray-Bans. "You know brands?", Frank asked. Sara shrugs her shoulders. "Not because I buy them, because I hear the customers talk. Joanne, she's one of my regulars, she works in the perfume department in a nearby mall. She has to know some of that stuff. People want perfumes that match their clothes, she says. Anyway."

This chimp had ordered a very exact cut, going so far as to provide written instructions, pulled from a black leather wallet. He always kept in his wallet, he had said, because explaining it in detail to every barber had become tiresome the more he travelled. Sara had, as any good haircutter in a salon will do, started up a conversation as the work had started. The chimp had mentioned an inspection, then brought up how he couldn't get the smell of oil out of his nostrils. If the smell had sunk into the suit, he'd have to throw this one away. He wasn't going to be caught dead showing up to a meeting smelling like a factory worker. When asked what he had against factory workers, he had launched into a tirade.

The workers don't know how good they have it, he said. When he was younger, he had put in hours of hard work, and for less money than what was being paid out now. Now the workers wanted money for no work. They were trying to renegotiate a deal that they knew they'd be getting before they signed up. That was how a proper business was run. That was how the business had always been run. But now there was all this talk about how it wasn't fair that people weren't being paid when they weren't working. More paid sick days. Extended maternity leave. Paternity leave. Paternity leave! He had sounded like he was going to spit.

Sara knew better than to pick at a scab (although, she noted, this character seemed like he might be fond of scabs), so she changed the subject to whether he was staying in town for long. No, what he had to do now was write a report on the situation. He could do that here, but why subject himself to that? He'd go back home, then send in people who were more suited for long-term observation. His job wasn't to fix problems, just to identify which places had problems that needed fixing. The food was the biggest problem. He hadn't been eating right. Everything down south was terrible. Too much seasoning, he said. What happened to some good, old-fashioned chicken? Salt and pepper were more than enough.

"I think," said Sara, speaking close to Frank's ear in a conspiratorial manner, "that that guy was a Cessna executive. Raytheon, maybe. Who else talks like that? The way he was dressed, too. He looked ready to walk down a runway! Rich people are all like that, you know. Dying to show off. Don't misunderstand me, I'd be like that too, if I had money. I'm just saying that it makes them easy to pick out of a crowd." Frank nodded. He remembered Mary bringing up factories. That was something he had heard when he was considering moving here, too. Wichita was a hotspot for plane manufacturers. Or it had been. Frank hadn't done much research other than cost of living.

"Pretty crazy, meeting a guy like that. You think those guys he was talking about have a chance?", Frank asked. For the first time since her story had started, the smile disappears from her face. "Depends. Cessna is headquartered here, so just shuttering up and moving on to the next place won't be easy for them. Raytheon is at the top of military stuff. They might get nasty." Sara looks past Frank, out the window. He follows her gaze, expecting to see one of the factories in question, jutting out of the landscape and pumping out pitch black smoke from chimneys that stuck up like fingers clawing at the sky. Instead, he saw the dull concrete of an apartment building. Not any nicer than The Homestead, but closer to the city proper, and therefore too expensive for him.

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Frank and Sara talked about this and that until the bus came to a stop in front of a pawn shop. Presumably the one Sara had mentioned earlier. "You got the schedule? Give me your number, I'll text it to you." Frank gives his number to Sara, who insists on giving him her number in return. "What if you get lost? It's your first time in this city after all." Frank stares at the number on his phone, not entirely sure what to make of it. The first since he moved away. One day, that was all it took. He had a harder time getting girl's numbers in college. He smiled to himself and tucked the phone back into his pocket. "Hey, thanks," he said. "Thank you. I'm not from here, Kansas. So, it's nice to have this." He pats the pocket with the phone. "Happened to me too, a couple years back, when I moved here. It's hard to get along by yourself. Don't be afraid to ask me for help, ok? I'll always try. Everyone else in The Homestead is the same. Well, except maybe Ana," Sara said. She gave him a quick wave as she turned and jogged off to work.

As Frank entered the pawn shop, he was greeted by a saluki that introduced herself as Haj. She spoke with a subtly suppressed accent that was common in second-generation immigrants as she told him about some new jewelry that was perfect for a gift. "It'll be Christmas before you know it. Prices go up, then, so it's best to buy now." As she was pointing out the beauty of a silver necklace, already engraved with a pleasantly generic "To Whom I Love Most", Frank interrupted by saying he was only interested in a coffee maker today. Nothing out, she said, but there was some stuff stored in the back she could check, if he didn't mind waiting a minute. Frank said he didn't, and she scurried off into a door hidden behind a selection of well-loved acoustic guitars.

Taking the time to examine the store as he waited, Frank saw that they seemed to have a little bit of everything. Computers, furniture, some clothing. Were shirts the kind of thing you pawned off? Frank couldn't imagine getting much money for those. Taking another look around, he saw that most of the items out had low asking prices. All of these were sold to the shop by some local trying to get a bit of cash. To make a profit, the store had to sell them at a higher price than they had been bought at, right? He looked at an intricately carved wooden clock. It was about a foot and a half tall, with depictions of the Virgin Mary standing on either side of a plane of glass laid into the center, with a pendulum standing unmoving behind. Each Mary stood facing away from the center, their heads bowed toward an infant Jesus swaddled and held to their breast. It was obviously worth much more than the $150 price tag.

Frank moved around the shop, which was much larger than he had originally thought it to be, seeing similarly astounding items. A painting featuring an aging lizard reclining in a rocking chair. A blue vase with fake flowers inside it. A small statue of a wolf with a sword bigger than him, which Frank thought was from a collector's edition of some video game. Looking at them made him uneasy in a way he couldn't quite pin down. For reasons he wasn't entirely sure of, Frank moved the timeframe of purchasing a car from "a couple months" to "within a year or two".

The tour of the store came to an end as Haj emerged from the storage room, followed by an older terrier with a drooping mustache and a tweed suit. From the way the older man carried himself, and the tone he used when speaking to Haj, Frank assumed this was the owner of the store. He introduced himself as Mr. Stellers, then proceeded to produce a handmade catalogue of their stock. The machines were either too big to fit in his apartment, too expensive, or of the brand that Sara had specifically warned against. "You sure have a lot of different stuff. It's crazy," Frank said in what he hoped was a complementary manner. He had already decided that he wasn't going to buy anything here, but for some reason felt that he was being rude by doing so, and therefore saw the need to soften the blow before he mentioned it. When he did, Mr. Stellers just shrugged and said "Alright. Come again soon if you need anything. We're always getting something interesting." Then he went back to the door behind the guitars.

Feeling silly, Frank stood in the middle of the floor, not really knowing what to do with himself. After a minute, he turned to leave and came face to face with Haj. He'd forgotten she was there. Feeling as if he had been put on the spot, he asked the first question to come into his head. "Do you know any other places near here where they sell coffee makers?"

"Target," she said. Right. He had known that. Still, he felt this was better than simply taking off without buying anything. With a mumbled thanks, he walked out the door. That was a habit he had to break. He knew in his head that both Haj and her boss would forget about him as soon as he left, but he always felt that he was on the verge of horribly offending someone if he didn't fill in every silence.

Recalling Sara's directions, Frank began his journey to Target. It's a nice day, though still a bit too warm for his tastes, and this is a much cleaner part of the city than the area around The Homestead. He even passed a couple of teenagers playing football in a park. Frank pulled out his phone to check the date. It was a Saturday, apparently. Basing his schedule around the days of the week would take some getting used to. Before, his calendar had been using exams and due dates.

In short order, Frank was striding through a mostly empty parking lot and into the Target. It was nice to be inside a place he recognized. It seemed that Wichita Targets differed little from their Wilmington equivalents. Frank quickly procured a means of making coffee that could fit onto his kitchen counter and more or less did its job. Even with those low standards, the thing would cost more than Frank would have liked. Of course, with no cash incoming at the present, so did nearly everything. Feeling that he wanted to avoid the bus as often as possible, Frank looked around the grocery section before paying to see if he could save himself another trip out.

As he was browsing through the cereal aisle, he turned toward the sound of a cart approaching. He moved to one side of the aisle to make room for the cart and its pilot, a man even shorter than Frank, with dark fur sticking up out of a dirty white shirt. "Oh, hey! Mort, right?", Frank said, putting on a neighborly smile. The polecat stopped mid-stride to gave Frank a confused stare. "Sorry?", he said. Frank fought to keep the smile in place. "Erm, you are Mort, right? Adrianne's husband?" Frank could swear it was the same person but had never been too good with faces. As the polecat continued to stare at him, Frank got so hot he began to wonder if the store's air conditioning was working properly.

"I just moved into 204? We met this morning?", he tried, getting desperate. Mort's eyes widen with recognition. "Oh. Well, hey." Mort went back to staring blankly at him. "Uh...I didn't see you on the bus this morning. How'd you get here before me?" Frank said.

"I have a car."

"Ah," Frank said.

"You need anything else?"

"Oh, no! No. I've got everything I need," Frank said, hefting the red basket he had been stuffing with future purchases. "Just on my way to check out." He had not, as a matter of fact, gotten everything he needed, but he was still tired from the trip yesterday, and was eager to get himself home and out of this thing that could be charitably described as a conversation.

Mort nods his head, then looks at the floor, seeming to consider something. He comes to a decision a few seconds later. "You want a ride back?", he asks. Frank's whole face lights up. A free ride, with no busses! "Hell yeah, man! Totally!", he says. Mort wrinkles up his nose in response. "Ok. It's not that exciting," he says as he walks off towards the registers. Frank flushes behind his wool and heads in the same direction, trying not to look like he's following.

Despite having more stuff, Mort is the first one done checking out. He gives Frank a wave and points outside, then walks out the door. After everything is scanned, roots around in his wallet to find his Target card. His mother's Target card. Shit. Frank rattles off a list of possible phone numbers to the cashier, hoping his mother hadn't canceled the card after he left. The line behind him starts getting impatient at his third failed attempt. He gets it right on the sixth. Trotting out with two bags in one hand and a big box of coffee maker in the other, he finds Mort leaning on a mud-stained car. The car is mostly blue, except for the hood, which is an unpainted gray. A window on the read of the driver's side had been replaced with a plastic sheet, held in place with duct tape.

Mort opens the trunk as Frank comes closer. "Do you have a habit of making people wait?", Mort asks, irritation obvious in his voice. Frank tries to explain about the card, but Mort cuts him off by mentioning how he'd like to be getting home soon. Mort gets into the driver's seat while Frank finishes loading up the car. The car starts as soon as Frank closes the trunk, and he quickly runs to his seat. Mort pulls out of the parking lot with a speed that makes Frank grip his seat.

Five minutes later, they're both sitting behind a red light. So far, neither of them has said anything since they got in the car. Mort hangs a left as the light turns green, then sniffs loudly. "You know Adrianne?", he asks. Frank is taken off-guard by the question, having expected to make the rest of the trip back home without talking. "What?", he says.

Mort glances at Frank out of the corner of one eye. "My wife. You mentioned her earlier." Frank nods, readjusting his seat. "Yes. Yeah. I met her when I was moving in yesterday. She talked to me a bit, offered to help." Frank thinks he sees a hint of suspicion enter Mort's gaze. "I didn't take her up, though. I don't have too much stuff," Frank offers with a nervous laugh. Mort doesn't find it as amusing.

Without taking his eyes off the road for an instant, Mort begins to speak. "Adrianne's a kind woman. Too kind, I sometimes think. But she's also very...frail." The choice of words felt odd to Frank. He remembered the look in her eyes when she got mad at Mary last night. Those weren't the eyes of a frail woman. Mort continued. "I'm just worried she might take a special interest in you. You're - What? Twenty-three? Young, anyway. The kind of person she might go out of her way to be friendly to. Understand?" Oh, thought Frank, so she's that kind of woman. In retrospect, she had been very forward when she first met him. He remembered the words "cute guy" being used. Mort seemed like the kind of guy who got angry easily. Plus, he was behind the steering wheel right now. Frank nodded his assent. Then, realizing that Mort couldn't see him with his eyes on the road, said, "I think so. What of it?"

Coming to another red light, Mort placed the car into park so he could look directly at Frank. "What I'm getting at is, she might offer some help here and there, for a guy like you. Directions and stuff, that's fine. Just don't ask her to do anything more...active." Mort's voice takes on a more serious tone. "The others in the apartment know about her, too. And it's a small place. They'll hear if you try and get her to do something." Frank saw a light creep into the polecat's eyes that made him uncomfortable. The light turned green. Shifting back into drive, Mort took off with a screech of tires. "Just don't overstep yourself. That's really all I'm asking. Think you can manage that?"

Frank felt like his throat had gone dry. Christ, I just talked to her! No, she talked to me_!_ Frank _really_did not want to deal with a pissed off neighbor not even twenty-four hours after he moved in. "Listen, I'm sorry, I -"

"There's no need to be sorry. Nothing's happened. Just tell me you'll watch yourself," Mort said in a perfectly level tone.

"Sure. No problem," Frank squeaked. Mort turned from the road and shot Frank a smile, all teeth. "That's good. It's good to work with people. See, we don't all get along great at The Homestead, but we are a kind of a...team. We work together, when we can." Frank could make out the cuspids hidden in among the rest of Mort's teeth. "Be a team player, and people will be willing to play with you. Don't, and you'll find it pretty hard to get by, day by day." Frank nodded his understanding again. "Yeah," he said, "I totally get it. Yeah."

Mort reclined in his seat and rolled his shoulders. "Good. Good. I'm not trying to make you feel unwelcome in The Homestead, it's just that Adrianne is very important to me. I'd do anything to protect her. Really." Another smile. More teeth. The conversation died off. There was quiet in the car all the way back home.