The half-forgotten
Other half of my short life
In short story form

 
Buy Low, Sell High
5-23-1999

I was meeting a girl behind my old house on Antoinette, named Janie. She came around the corner of the house and greeted me, wanted to know if I wanted to go out on a date. I thought, "sure." Another guy came up behind me, holding some roses. He was here to meet her, too, but apparently I beat him too it. She left.

She called me on my cell phone (no, I don't have one in real life) and told me she was at some restaurant, to meet her there. I did, and sat down across from her at a little table next to a wall. I asked about the guy with the flowers, and she explained various reasons that he would never have a chance with her. We didn't get to talk much. We kept on being interrupted, one of us would have to leave for a moment to do something every couple seconds, so finally I had to leave. She smiled and said, "We'll have to try this again." She was kinda cute.

I was riding my motorcycle somewhere on the freeway when I got another call. She said she was in the waiting room at the hospital, and to meet her there.She projected a map of the hospital's floor plan onto the LCD of my phone to show me where she was. I went there. I don't remember what happened.

A considerable amount of dream passed, and the next thing I remember is another phone call. Caller ID indicated it was the same phone number. Well, it wasn't a phone call but a digital message, like e-mail, on the LCD of my phone. It said, "Hi, I thought we could go out again. Meet me again at that restaurant. I'll be there. My name's Michelle." I thought to myself that she probably thought I forgot her name since it had been a while and it's possible we both saw a lot of people. Then it dawned on me that the girl's name was supposed to be Janie, not Michelle, and I got suspicious. Still, the caller ID indicated it was her.

It wasn't. It was someone else. Not good-looking at all. She acted like she knew me. We went out to the parking lot. She hopped onto a huge motorcycle, commenting how mine was so dinky (funny, cuz mine is NOT dinky). We took off, stopping at her place. She was fetching something, don't remember. I meandered through the kitchen, played with a magnet on the fridge. I wondered if Janie lived here, too, and then saw a picture of her. I imagined the two of us casually collapsing on a bed of mock exhaustion, then me rolling over and kissing her, but then this Michelle person (both of these girls are white, BTW, and totally fictional) returned. A bunch of other girls arrived on sporty motorcycles (in full armour, like Bubblegum Crisis).

We all took off for our destination, each of us taking a totally different direction. Somehow my helmet wasn't on the entire way, and I struggled to put it on with one hand while riding with the other. Impossible. Two of the other chicks circled around, came toward me, and hit the exit. I followed. We all stopped in some huge warehouse. I noticed all these people were in a big motorcycle gang, then remembered that on my profile I listed motorcycles as an interest, and dang it, come to think of it, everything this girl knew about me was listed on there. So maybe she'd just looked me up randomly and liked what she read. Wasn't sure.

We got off our bikes and jumped up some crates to where some big (like Jeremy kinda big) guy was. Black beard, hair. They introduced me. He made some comment about my size, and I said, "You loser, outta-school type-a guy." He pushed me off the crates and yelled, "What?" I said, "you outta-school type-a guy". He said, again, "What did you call me?!?" I repeated the last part intentionally, knowing full well he was focusing on the "loser" part. He pushed at me again. "What did you call me?!?" Since he was pressing it, I called him a loser again. He lunged at me. I dodged away and punched him several times, kicked him in the stomach, in the face, beat him down, kicked his head in, let him him, punched him all over again, and so on, for a long time. He wouldn't give up, but I knew that the longer I beat his ass, the less likely anyone in this gang would ever mess with me again, and that would hold in my favor later on, I suspected. Plus I knew the chicks were impressed (though I can't imagine a chick digging fighting, but hey).

I left. I received another call, this time from one of the other girls, asking for my assistance on a job she was about to pull. I asked if she needed a getaway car, or a motorcycle. "Motorcycle's fine," she said. "Well I have both," I reminded. On the one hand I'm better at piloting a car, but my car doesn't have the pickup my motorcycle does, nor can it get into the same places.

I met her at the rendezvous point, but she didn't need a lift after all. I inquired as to her profession, but she wouldn't tell me. I suspected they were involved in some sort of illegal arms manufacturing, and that they wanted my chemical engineering skills.

A bunch of other stuff, involving a rival underground contacting me for my skills as well. I helped them pull a job, basically played both sides of this underground network, wondering if I would ever have a safe haven to call "home" again.

I found myself in a winter forest. The sun was setting. I was with a kid named Jason from church (can't for the life of me remember his last name...Ryan L's best friend). The sunset was the most beautiful thing, somehow breaking through the dense, snow-like clouds on the horizon in an impossibly bright white-yellow light. I stumbled through the snow toward the center of a cliff to get a direct view and shouting back to Jason in rejoice and its awesomeness. By the time he got there, however, it was over.

"Let's take a walk," he said. "With all my friends I eventually like to take the time to share something silly about myself." So we did. We walked a few trails. As we passed along a clearing, he said, "I invest in stocks a lot." This was his silly admission. "That's a great hobby to have!" I said. I guessed that he'd accumulated several thousand dollars in profit, but then he revealed he'd amassed three quarters of a million dollars. I was floored, and envied him having that much money during college. I told him I'd been trying to get into it lately, and said, "You should look into DISH network. They're set to be the industry standard..." I ducked under a branch, "...for cable. They're stock is like $140 right now, but it'll split soon." He waved his hand at me, "The secret is to buy low and sell high." Well, duh, I thought, but whatever.

We came out onto a golf course. It was the first daylight I'd seen the entire dream. Well, THE golf course. Some golfers went by. I looked around for the concealed pool of water I once cavorted in with another dream female in a dream years ago (Yes, and I have that one typed up somewhere, too! All my dreams overlap! In the end it really WILL be one big complex story!), but couldn't quite spot it. I guessed it was turned into a sandtrap or something, since a lot had been done since I stopped working here. Another couple joined us. They all wanted to hit a few balls, so we went up to the 12th tee. The owner was finishing a couple hits, and I figured we might be able to squeeze in behind him and the foursome behind. I grabbed the couple's bag for them, which was motorized, and climbed up to the tee with the help of a ski pole -- it was very steep! Steeper than I remembered. I asked if they were okay as they scaled it. We made it to the tee and Jason set up. I grabbed a driver and swung around a bit, commenting it'd been a while since I played. I tried to remember where the path was where I drove my tank through in yet another dream, cuz I figured it was around here, but perhaps it was overgrown.

I was contacted again by the underground. I talked to someone who said they made ten times more money using their engineering skills illegally than for a real company. They said people got turned in all the time, but if you were powerful enough, you had other people around to take the fall for you. I knew that I would have to become one of these powerful people. I continued to sell intelligence about both factions to the other, never getting caught.


posted by Phlegm at 11/24/2003