The Enviable Life of Wyatt Klinker Section 3

Well, now we're rolling. Truthfully I'm pretty proud of myself. I was way behind coming out of the weekend and now I'm at 18,444 words. This comes after a furious writing session yesterday where I was able to bury about 6000 words. Believe it or not, this is getting easier as I move along. I know I'm not quite halfway there, but I happy to know that I still have a good bit of story up in my head and really am beginning to feel that I can get this written. This weekend may be a bit of a test. Dad and Janie plan on coming down Saturday and that night we are going out to celebrate Angie's birthday, so my time will be limited. Angie is scrapbooking on Friday night and I never get anything done when I'm trying to watch the kids. That leaves Sunday, and I'm scheduled to work. Could be rough. I'm hoping to use Thursday night as a writing night so I can work ahead. I wasn't really fond of having to make up all those words over the last two days. I plan on writing through lunch today, so hopefully I can make progress.

This next section is fairly long and takes you through word #12117, so there is another 6000 words already on paper. Hopefully I can stay ahead of your reading while still supplying semi-daily updates.

Kevin: I Appreciate your comments and would love to hear from others. It makes me happy knowing people are reading this stuff.

Anyway, here is the next section, hope you enjoy it...

CHAPTER 4: OFFICER

Wyatt walked around Navy Pier in Chicago, Lindsey talking as they walked. He wasn’t really paying attention; instead he took in the view. Lindsey was a lot more talkative then he had ever guessed she could be.
He had never had any intention of asking her to take him in to town and evidently Chaya had figured that out because on Tuesday she had called in and said she could not come in to work because she had been up all night with two sick kids.
It wasn’t long after his aunt had made this announcement that Lindsey had suggested they go in town to Navy Pier and maybe head down town to walk around and “see the sights”. Carla had feigned excitement and said that she thought that going downtown was a great idea. She even gave Lindsey some money and told her to make it a day, maybe have some dinner down there as well. She said she felt bad that they had missed the Fourth of July fireworks the previous day and wanted to make it up to them. Wyatt knew that she just wanted him out of her house.
It was sunny and hot and while it was a work day, the holiday had drawn quite a few people to the city. You could tell that most of the people around them were tourists. Many had cameras draped around their necks and a smile plastered across their faces as they enjoyed the city.
Wyatt could have been mistaken for a local. This really wasn’t his idea of a good time. While he loved watching people he did not like being out amongst them. He preferred to watch from the shadows, only coming out when he chose. Lindsey on the other hand looked completely comfortable in these surroundings. She talked and laughed about different trips down to this area of the city and of different things she had done with her friends. She constantly asked questions that Wyatt struggled to answer. When given a choice he usually just replied with a lazy “I don’t care” and let her lead him around to where she wanted to go.
One good thing about this trip into town was that Lindsey had not shown any of the interest she had displayed on the veranda a week earlier. Wyatt had been nervous while he was getting ready to go yet once they had left he could not detect any of the sexual tension that had been present the last time they had been alone together.
This made him feel good. While he wasn’t very conversant, he was comfortable at the moment and he could live with that. The control that he had seemingly lost when Lindsey had given him that “look” had really disoriented him and thrown him off. He needed control; it was all he really had.
“Let’s go over to Louie’s!” she explained suddenly, breaking off from a story she had been reciting about how her friends had eaten so much cotton candy they had gotten sick. “They have the best pizza in Chicago. You’ve got to try it!”
For once Wyatt was in agreement. They had been down here since ten o’clock and it was going on two. Had there been one thing that Wyatt had hoped for when he flew out here it was getting to taste the pizza. Steve had told him about the super thick dough and the huge amounts of toppings so prevalent in pizza out in Chicago.
A short ride on the “L” brought them within blocks of Louie’s, a tiny place crowded between two non-descript businesses in the heart of downtown. The windows were tinted dark and Wyatt couldn’t see inside but when the door swung open he could smell the wonderful aroma of fresh baked pizza. Immediately his mouth started to water.
The inside of the restaurant was a lot more spacious than what the street view conveyed. Being mid afternoon there were few customers and Lindsey and Wyatt were able to choose a comfortable booth towards the back of the restaurant.
The dark green vinyl booths were worn and ripped in places and the walls needed a new coat of paint, but the place was comfortable, and Wyatt liked it immediately.
“What can I get you kids to drink?” a chubby man in a stained white apron asked them, not quite approaching the table.
“I’ll take a Coke,” Wyatt replied.
“Me too, please,” Lindsey followed.
“Two Cokes, no problem. I’ll be right back,” he said as he turned and walked through a swinging door into the kitchen.
“Well, you’re the native, what’s good here?” Wyatt asked his cousin, reaching for a menu tucked in behind the salt and pepper shakers next to the wall.
“Well, I’m a traditionalist. I usually just go pepperoni but I’m willing to try something different if you want. You are the foreigner after all,” she replied with a smirk.
“Well, they do say that the merit of one’s pizza is based on the basics. Why try replicating a Picasso when you can’t even color inside the lines? Let’s do the pepperoni and see if this place is as good as you say it is.” Wyatt accentuated his words with a nod, drawing the same from his cousin.
When the waiter came back she ordered for them and they sat back relaxing in the cool air conditioning while they waited for their food.
“What’s Boston like Wyatt?” she asked him out of the blue.
“I don’t know, I guess like this place only a little smaller. I know it’s a hell of a lot cooler in the summer than this place is,” he laughed. He sat for a moment thinking, the smile leaving his face. “Its home. I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to explain. The people are rude, the traffic is terrible. But I miss it. I don’t know why, but I do. I look forward to going home.”
“You get along with your parents?” she asked and for a minute he was afraid that they were about to revisit their conversation from the patio a week earlier.
“They’re okay I guess,” he told her. “I mean, they give me a hard time, but overall they just leave me alone and I’m cool with that. Mom, she sometimes gives me a hard time about my room or dad yells at me when I don’t mow the lawn when I’m supposed to, but overall they aren’t bad.”
He sipped on his Coke.
“Do they ignore you like mine ignore me?” she asked and he realized she was fishing.
He thought for a minute, “Yeah, they do, but I think that’s just what parents do. They get so involved with life that sometimes I think they want to forget. I remember that when I was growing up my mom stayed home and didn’t work so she could take care of me. I remember her telling me they she was so fed up with me and that she just need to get the hell away from me sometimes. I suppose she is just taking advantage of that now.”
“That’s how I feel,” she replied, her eyes dropping to the red checked tablecloth. “My mom and dad really don’t spend too much time with me anymore. Sure, mom wants me to go with her when she goes shopping or stuff like that, but usually she just ends up telling me to meet her somewhere in a couple hours then I go off on my own.”
“What about your dad?” he asked.
She looked up with a smile, “I remember there was a horse farm way out south of the city. Dad used to take me there when I was little. I loved our trips out there. They had a little corral with pony rides and we used to go and pick out a horse for me to ride. I remember being way up on the horse, him holding on to my leg so I wouldn’t fall off. Afterward we would go out and get ice cream or just go to a little country store and pick out a bunch of snacks to eat in the car on the way home. Dad used to tell me not to tell mom that we were eating all that junk food because she would be mad we spoiled our dinners.”
“Sounds like you really had a good time,” he said as she continued.
“Yeah, we did. When I turned ten we quit going there and then he stopped taking me anywhere. I don’t know why. I still miss those days.”
“Ya know, sometimes people just get caught up in other things. Before you know it you’ve left that other life behind,” he said as she nodded, “it’s kinda like best friends that just grow apart. My guess is that you and your dad grew apart as you got older.”
She watched him for a minute, not saying anything. He fidgeted with his napkin, folding it into a paper airplane, thinking nothing of the silence.
“You’re different Wyatt. Why is that?” she asked him.
“What do you mean, I’m different?” he quizzed her.
“You know, you’re different. I wouldn’t say you’re weird or anything, because you’re basically normal, but you don’t act like most guys. I don’t know what it is,” she toiled with how to explain it.
He looked at her intently. He was extremely uncomfortable discussing himself, giving away his secrets. He still wasn’t sure about his cousin, but her admission about her father made him feel akin to her. He had been told before how complicated he was and had thought about that a lot. He had a pretty good idea what people saw, and as simple as it seemed to him, those who analyzed him had a difficult time figuring him out. On the other hand, by explaining how he worked to others, he gave away his power, and that wasn’t something he liked to do.
“I don’t think I’m different,” he said, not quite willing to give full disclosure. “Lindsey, I’m just like everyone else, I just don’t act like everyone else.”
“Well duh! That’s no real secret Wyatt. Why do you think we are having this conversation?” she smiled broadly, her teeth as straight and white as any he had ever seen.
“What I mean is, I spend more time watching people, learning about people, figuring people out than most people do,” he admitted to her, feeling some relief and some trepidation.
“Do you watch me?” she asked with a bit of a coy expression.
It was completely lost on Wyatt whose mind was racing, trying not to disclose everything, “Yeah, I watch everyone,” he replied without thinking.
“What do you watch me doing,” she prodded.
“Just about everything actually. I watch you eat, how you look at each bite, almost like you are analyzing it before you finally take it”
“I do not!” she interrupted, a huge grin playing across her face.
“Hey, you asked. I’m just telling you what I see,” he defended himself, hands up in front of him as if to ward off a blow.
“What else,” she relented, sitting back in her seat so as to listen fully.
“I watch you talk on the phone. I watch you from the window of my room, when you are swimming or sunbathing or just sitting in the backyard. I watch you all the time,” his mind carried him back to the many times he had focused on her. The memories played in his head, and he seemed lost, distant from the present.
He recalled one day a couple of days ago when he had seen her climbing out of the pool. While she was very well built and extremely sexy in her royal blue bikini, it was her face he had focused on. He had noticed that she was completely expressionless. He remembered thinking how sad that seemed. It had been a beautiful day, complete void of clouds. The heat was no excessive and a cool breeze made it just perfect, yet he remembered her climbing out of the pool and a sense of dread filled him.
How could someone who seemed to have everything she could ever want, living in a beautiful house, look so stoic and melancholy? It just hit him as wrong, and it bothered him.
She was saying something to him, but he didn’t hear her, instead he just let that memory play in his head. The worse thing about watching people was that there were so many mysteries, ones that in most cases you would never solve, no matter how long you watched them.
“Wyatt, are you alright,” she asked, shaking his hand.
He snapped out of the trance he had seemingly entered and smiled at her. “Yeah, I’m okay, I was just thinking.”
At that, the waiter arrived with the pizza, steam rising off of it as he set it in the middle of the table.
“One pepperoni for the happy couple,” he proclaimed as he placed plates in front of each of them and began the task of shoveling a slice of the ultra thick pie from the scalding black pan it was housed in.
Neither Lindsey nor Wyatt corrected him, intent on the meal in front of them. Based on looks alone Wyatt was positive he was about to experience paradise.

Wyatt ate all he could and still only managed two slices of the delicious Chicago style pizza. He wasn’t sure how he was going to go back to Boston and eat the stuff he was used to. Lindsey had been right about this place and Wyatt knew that he would have to hit the non-descript restaurant at least one more time before he headed back home.
Offers by the waiter to box up the leftovers were met with multiple confirmations, as Wyatt raved about the food. Lindsey simply sat back and smiled with a knowing “I told you so” look on her face.
Glancing at his cheap watch, Wyatt noticed that it was well past three thirty. “Well, you think we should get going?”
“Yeah, Mom wanted us home by five and it will take a good forty-five minutes in rush hour to get home,” she replied, gathering up her purse.
“Aunt Carla wanted YOU home by five,” he thought without saying anything. “He didn’t figure he would degrade his host anymore with her daughter, considering Wyatt felt Lindsey was already passing her own judgment on her family.
They walked out of the restaurant and were immediately hit by the mid afternoon heat. It had grown almost oppressive by this time and both agreed that they should race back home so they could jump in the pool.
They turned right and walked the four city blocks to reach the train station. As they approached they noticed a man standing beside the entrance, an old worn White Sox hat in his hand, extended to those who walked past him. As they approached they heard him ask, “spare a few coins for a meal?”
The man had very dark skin, and graying hair. A scruffy white beard covered his face and extended down his neck. His forehead was covered in sweat, yet he wore multiple layers of clothes. His pants were old blue Dickies, torn and patched in multiple places. A layer of filth spotted them. Underneath his open wool coat he wore a grungy black t-shirt. A logo on the breast pocket was faded to the point where it was no longer recognizable. His hands we wrinkled, the palms callused. His nails were long, and thick grime was noticeable beneath each.
His eyes we heavy and sad looking, and Wyatt was moved by his paltry appearance.
“Can you spare a couple bucks so I kin git me a sandwich?” he pled with them as they neared? He pushed out his ball cap, and Wyatt noticed it had a couple of coins in it, but nothing more.
Wyatt reached into his pocket to fish out some money but Lindsey stopped him, “What are you doing? You don’t give money to those scumbags otherwise they’ll follow you around forever. Just ignore him. If he wants a sandwich he can go to the shelter or get a job. He only wants the money so he can buy some more booze tonight.”
Wyatt was a bit taken back by Lindsey’s words. For a second there he saw her as his Aunt Carla, callus and unfeeling.
Wyatt gave the man a look, and the poor bum smiled back, yet there was morose in his face, one that told Wyatt that he understood Lindsey’s words and that this wasn’t the first time he had heard them. He nodded at Wyatt and then just turned away, retreating into the shadow of the building until the next person came along and he tried his luck again.
Lindsey and Wyatt made their way down to the train platform, crowded with a mass of people, pushing through turn styles and waiting for the next train. It didn’t take long before the correct train came barreling into the tunnel, its brakes squealing as it came to a stop along the long concrete platform. The doors opened and hundreds of people spilled out moving in mass to one of the exits from the station.
The two teens waited their turn and like the others, pressed into the rail car with its red seat and grungy lights.
The “L” was crowded and smelled of summer sweat as people jostled for seats, or attempted to maintain their balance as the train rattled down the tracks. There was a distinct sound to the train, one unique to Chicago.
The car was loaded with people of all walks of life. Just when it seemed as if the cabin had been packed as full as it could, the train would make another stop and few would leave in comparison to those who got on. It was nearing the end of the work day and people were making their way home to the city outskirts, or in Lindsey and Wyatt’s case, the suburbs.
The two cousins stood facing one another and the train continued to plow forward stopping every few minutes to exchange passengers. A man bumped Lindsey and shoved her in to Wyatt, who grabbed her to keep her from toppling. She immediately pulled herself away and apologized. It was at that point that Wyatt began to realize that the feelings he had thought she had displayed on the veranda were false. Lindsey wasn’t interested in him, and he was relieved.
The trip back to Kenilworth (the suburb they lived in) was the end of the line for the “L” and by the time they had arrived at their stop, the train was much less crowded. About half way there they had grabbed a seat from a group of people that had hurriedly exited the train.
Wyatt thought about the day they had shared. It was nice and it suddenly hit Wyatt that this was the kind of day you were supposed to have on vacation. He knew that the rest of his time here in Chicago was likely to be uneventful, but he was glad he had one day that he could look back at and remember fondly. Now he figured he just needed to put in the rest of his time, which shouldn’t be a problem now that Lindsey was not the problem he originally concerned himself with.
The trained screeched to a halt at the Kenilworth station and the two of them, along with a few dozen others exited the car and made their way through the station and out into the afternoon sun. When they had left to go downtown Lindsey’s mom had dropped them off at the station and planned on picking them up at five thirty when they got back.
Wyatt wasn’t surprised when he didn’t see the car, having enjoyed the wait at the airport weeks earlier. The two of them plopped down beside one another on a dark green bench in the shade outside of the station. It had cooled slightly, but was still baking in the sun and the shaded spot felt good.
It wasn’t long before Wyatt spotted a black and white patrol car pulling into the station parking lot, making its way to the front of the building. It pulled up in front of the two of them and the officer rolled down his window.
“Are you Wyatt Klinker and Lindsey Morgan?” he asked them to their surprise.
“Yeah, we are,” Lindsey answered, leaning forward, “is something wrong?”
“I need you both to get in. I’m supposed to take you home,” he told them, a bit of tension in his voice.
“What’s wrong?” listened asked, a hint of panic in her voice.
“Just get in, please. We’ll talk about it once we get you home. The back door is unlocked.”
“Is my mom okay? Is she hurt?” Lindsey was beginning to lose control.
The officer turned around as they slid into the cool interior of the cruiser, “I’m Officer York, and you’ve got to calm down. Your mom is okay. We’ll discuss this once we get you two home.”
Wyatt knew that something had happened and he immediately felt bad for Lindsey. She really cared for her dad, though he never seemed to offer her any attention. Wyatt allowed a hundred different scenarios to play through his head though he figured it was going to be a lot less traumatic that what Lindsey was figuring. Uncle Rich had probably been pulled over for drunk driving or something and Lindsey’s mom had gone down to bail him out. He figured that once she realized Lindsey was sitting at the train station waiting for her she had asked the police to send someone to pick them up.
The trip back to the house was a short ten minutes, but to Lindsey it seemed like an eternity. As they pulled up to the house they saw another police cruiser as well as both Carla’s Lexus and Rich’s BMW in the driveway.
“Well,” thought Wyatt, “it wasn’t a DUI otherwise they would have impounded Uncle Rich’s Beemer.” Now Wyatt was even more curious.
The officer turned to them, “Officer Rawlings is inside with your parents. He’ll explain everything.”
The officer got out of the car and opened the back door for them so they could slide out. He held the door as they both turned to thank them and Wyatt was sure he saw remorse in the young policeman’s eyes.
“You two take care of yourselves,:” he said as he got back behind the wheel of his car before backing out and driving away.
“I wonder what that is all about,” Wyatt asked Lindsey as they made their way through the garage and in through the kitchen door.
They found Rich and Carla in the den with who they assumed to be Officer Rawlings. He was an older, heavy set man with white hair. His cheeks and nose were bright red, as if he had recently been exerting himself.
Lindsey ran to her mom and dad who stood up and wrapped their arms around her.
“Oh my god!” the young woman exclaimed, “I thought something had happened to you!”
Both Rich and Carla had grim looks on their faces, and when Rich opened his arm up and offered Wyatt an embrace, he knew something terrible had happened.
Wyatt didn’t move as he turned to look at the officer, “What?” he asked, “tell me.”
“Wyatt, I’m Officer Rawlings, and I’m afraid I’ve got some terrible news regarding your parents.”

July 6th - Dear Starlog

I don’t have a lot of details, but I know that my parents died when the tour bus they were riding on overturned and rolled approximately five hundreds yards down an extremely steep embankment in a rural part of southern France. In addition to them, thirty-seven other people, including the driver, died. There is a forthcoming investigation but initial reports say that mechanical failure was the likely cause.
I don’t know what to think right now. It seems very unreal to me. My uncle was pretty shook up, seeing as it was his sister that had died as well. After the officer had told me he asked if I was alright. What kind of question is that? I really didn’t know how to answer it. If I said “yes” it was a lie. How the hell could I be alright, my parents had just died in a freaking bus crash? If I answered “no” they would think I was losing it.
I’m sad that my folks died, I really am. My dad was a good guy and my mom, though psycho at times, was a decent enough lady. I know they loved me, and I loved them too. Sure, we didn’t have the greatest relationship and we weren’t incredibly close, but they were my parents and I like to think they did a pretty good job raising me. It’s not like I’m a crack head or anything like that.
What do you use to grade the success of a parent? The more I think about it the more I realize how ambiguous the whole “good parent, bad parent” thing is. I once heard that Jeffrey Dahlmer’s parents were good people. Did they do something that someone didn’t know about that was the biggest sin of parenting?
My parents fed me, they gave me a place to sleep, and they took care of me when I was sick. They would talk to me, and took interest in my grades. My dad would come watch me play little league baseball and would even play catch with me when I was younger.
My mom helped me with homework and did my laundry and put band-aids on my knees when I was a kid. She told me she loved me, at least she did when I was little. I can remember that. I got spankings from both parents when I was little and did something wrong but they never really hurt me or anything like that.
The more I think about the more I realize that my parents, if anything, were normal. They didn’t do anything crazy other than be possessive of the remote control and lounge chair and have an off limits living room in our house.
Maybe it’s me? Maybe if another kid had been born instead of me, that kid would have turned out differently. Maybe I’m who I am much to the conflicting efforts of my parents. I wonder if they ever thought, “I wonder why Wyatt isn’t how we want him to be, are we doing something wrong?”
The more I think about it, the more I realize that there is something seriously wrong with me. Here it is, less than twenty-four hours since I learned my parents were killed in a horrible bus accident and I can’t think of anything but myself. Why aren’t I sadder than what I am? The truth right now is that I’m scared. I don’t know what I’m going to do. My parents are dead, I’m eighteen years old, and I’m completely clueless about what comes next.