InsaneJournal

Could be better, could be worse. It was not much of an argument but it worked for Ecks, a man a penny over forty years of life experience, even when it seemed that he the strain from a few more lifetimes than he could care to count. Unemployment in this day and age was becoming an epidemic. To collect unemployment, he needed a place within the city limits. The Buick was not going to cut it for too much longer and the occasional motel rooms were barely a change in comfort. He had read a few articles years back about how a homeless man, a bum, managed to collect enough money to buy a gym membership and used a fake address. Paid in cash, the man could go in, work out, shower, give himself something of a normal life or at least a healthier one, before he would head back out. Ecks was not out so far that he was going to have to start going to the gym, but he could not stay much longer in a car that he had to keep moving. Was it still squatting if you were sitting in an empty parking lot in your own car?

The driver's side window was down all the way, despite the fact it was raining. His left hand was nudged out enough just so the water would keep hitting it and collect to run over the veins and tendons that became more pronounced with that "experience". In the right, the last rolled cigarette's smoke curled about itself before rising to the roof to dissipate. To keep the solo party going was enough reason to try and do something to get some money flow coming rather than going. The Cunt had not bugged him in the last few weeks via his lawyer, a fifty-something man with thinning hair and a penchant for wearing diagonally-striped ties. Peace and quiet was what Ecks needed, or something of that nature, neither of which was often found when you were sleeping in the backseat of your car night after night.

He gave his left wrist a flick and scattered rain droplets back into the vast before the cigarette was played between his lips. In the passenger seat laid a few prints Seattle had to offer, and across the steering wheel, each one was opened and his eyes scanned over the pages. This was reconnaissance work; what was the layout style, what was the subject matter, target audience, political affiliations--what was the gimmick that he could mimic for a buck. Sometimes you had to sell yourself out a little to get to where you wanted to go. All Ecks wanted was to get the fuck out of that car for more than two nights in a row.

A few of the smaller prints, the weekend and twice-a-week varieties seemed to have poorer writers for their reviews. It was a dog-eat-dog world in more venues than just media and it was evident that he could write with more style than these people could muster. When the rain would slow a little, he would wander up to one of the few pay phones that lingered in the jungle of cellular phones and ask the operator for numbers and addresses. It was time to pay a visit to some prospective employers and get his ass out of the hole it had fallen into.

Seattle had attracted him for a few reasons: the first simply being that it was clear on the other side of the country and going out of the continental United States tended to be more expensive than he could manage. It supposedly had something to offer people other than dead "grunge" musicians, too. The weather made it the poor man's London, and even had the history of devastation to give a little more weight. Seattle was bigger than a small town but smaller than New York City. You could get lost here but not completely disappear, or so Ecks believed for the most part. Sure, there was a lot of Missing flyers in the post office, but that is how it looked in every city. Did anyone ever stop to think that people went missing because they did not want be known? That they would hate to be found?

There was another missing advert on the back on the paper. She was pretty, a university student, last seen four months ago. He could develop a whole story to go with that pretty face, but why bother? Ecks folded the papers back up and threw them over into the passenger seat before the cigarette was finished, the engine ignited, and the car put in to drive. He was on the prowl for a pay phone, preferably in a booth. If you thought dogs smelled back when wet, try sleeping in the backseat of your car when wet. Waking up could only be less-pleasant if a dead hooker was in the front.