Chapter Two

This is the second chapter in my novel. It's not done, this is an extremely rough draft. I;m posting it here so I can print it out on campus.

Dan Feuerbach
English 352
2-27-2006
Chapter Two

Tom Menke got out of his BMW and quickened his pace. He opened the car door and extended his hand. Jenny took hold of it and he helped her out.
“This is going to be nice,” he said, “between work and Evan we don’t get to spend very much time together. You know, just the two of us.”
She smiled and agreed, arm in arm they walked to the elevator and took it down to the street level. They were heading downtown when they turned a corner and ran right into Harvey Kopelson.
“Tom, Tom Menke? Is that you?”
“Harvey?”
“Yeah, how’s it going?”
The men shook hands.
“That’s quite a grip you’ve got there, Tom. How you holding up these days? I haven’t seen you in what, five years?”
“Not since the funereal for Bill.”
“Yeah, he was a good roommate. Those were good times. Back when we were studs right out of college, trying to make it in the world and all that romantic crap. Remember that time the three of us went sledding over at Pioneer’s Park? I think I still have the bruises.”
Menke was glad that Kopelson left out the part about being severally drunk, in the park after hours and having to hide in the woods until the police stopped looking for them.
“Harvey, this is my wife, Jenny, we’ve been married for twelve years. Jenny, this is the guy I lived with many moons ago.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” Harvey said, and he kissed her hand, she blushed.
“Are you still in the transplant business?”
“Yes I am, Tom, but I can see your busy tonight, plus some friends from work are waiting for me at Zen’s. Here,” Harvey took out his business card, “call me sometime.”
Menke put the card in his wallet.
“It’s been nice seeing you again Harvey; I will definitely give you a call.”
“I hope to see you two again sometime, I got to get moving.”
The couple went the opposite direction from Kopelson.
“He seemed nice,” Jenny said.

Everett Gibson sat at home. Hooray for Saturday nights, he thought. He got off his couch and went to his kitchen. He opened the cabinets; hoping food would have magically appeared so he didn’t have to spend money. As usual, there was a can of cheap beans and a few noodles that fell out the last time he made spaghetti.
“Shit,” he said to the walls and carpet.
He looked at the clock. It was only eight-thirty. So much more time to be alone. He got into his Escort and drove slowly to the Burger King a block from his house. He didn’t care much for fast food, but shopping on an empty stomach didn’t appeal much.
He pulled up to the drive-in and made his order.
“Can I get that drink with half-Coke and half-Diet Coke?” he asked.
“What? Was that sir?” the androgynous voice crackled at him.
“Never mind,” he said.
When he got his food he parked in the lot of the restaurant and ate his food.
When the post-chicken-fry ingestion nausea wore off he drove north on Seventeenth Street to the Russ’s. He liked the remodeling. The store was cleaner and much nicer.
He went to the clerk with his cart full of boxes and cans, relieved another menial chore in his life was completed, so he could go back to sitting in his apartment, waiting for work.
He noticed the clerk had a small mark on the inside of his left elbow. A tiny puncture wound. The man’s bony face and glazed expression led Gibson to believe his clerk used intravenous drugs.

Gibson only hoped this man would never come through his shop. Intravenous drug users were a mortician’s nightmare. It would take so long to get his man’s body prepped for burial it wasn’t even funny. Twice as long as the average person.
What was wrong with this man? Didn’t he think of anyone besides himself? Formaldehyde couldn’t be pumped through the shattered veins in the man’s arms. If Gibson had to work on the intravenous drug user, he would have to go in through the jugular, which meant extra care to avoid scarring.
It also meant having to massage the arms and legs and anywhere else he found little puncture wounds so the fluid didn’t build up. It meant a much slower pumping rate to avoid rupturing the neck veins of the cadaver, not to mention the risk of HIV…

“Forty-eight dollars and sixty-seven cents, sir” the intravenous drug user said. He was nervous because Gibson kept staring at his arm.
“Huh? Oh. Uh. Yeah.” Gibson reached into his pocket and set down the money.
Gibson was turning around to leave, trying to ignore the intravenous drug user.
“See you later, sir.”
I certainly hope not Gibson thought as he took his groceries to his car.

After Gibson had put away all his food he sat down to smoke. He looked at the clock. Only forty-five minutes had passed. He lit up his cigarette and tried to think of something to do. He looked at his meager nineteen inch television.
Another disappointing Saturday night for TV. Why couldn’t they put anything worth watching on? Didn’t the networks even think about the lonely old men scattered across the country? He turned the box off and stood up. He went back to the kitchen to grab his keys. He noticed the advertisement for South Street Video sitting on top of his mail pile. Now he had an idea.
He got in his car and drove the half block to his most local of local video stores. He wanted porn. He had so little of an idea with what to do that evening he could be extra choosey.
For the next hour he perused the small store’s three rooms of porn, in addition to the wall of currently released Hollywood movies.
After rejecting the first two rooms, he came to the back row of the back room and noticed something interesting. A video titled “MILF Meat.” He read the back. It started with something he could completely understand:
“Do you hate your mom?” the video asked him.
From there on it described the horrible things mother did and the way this video would punish them for you. He couldn’t resist.
He went to the clerk and had to endure the agony of setting up and account with the video sitting in the man’s sight the entire time. He can see into my life, Gibson thought, he can see all the disgusting things I’m going to do and he’s judging me.
Five dollars and eighty-nine cents later Gibson walked out of the store, glad to have survived the trial. His excitement for the video returning.