Rewrite The Stars (Tom Hanson)

Chapter 4: Pot-Heads

"You try to steel yourself, to think of it as just a job. After a while, you get pretty good at it. But there were some things, that were impossible. I don't know about anyone else, no matter how good I got, there were times when I thought my heart would break."

Tom Hanson, pp. 111

After being in a car with Fuller twice, I have gotten used to using a handle to open the sticky doors. Doug's truck was no different. I know it's small, and it's only the first day, but I felt like I was doing pretty good considering the circumstances. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be. However, if someone from the 80's came to my time, they'd probably have a mental breakdown.

Doug turned the radio on to fill the air with a light noise as we bounced down the road that was littered with pot-holes. I only remembered to put the seatbelt on because I saw Doug do it. It was still too dark to see anything without headlights, and there was a hazy fog rolling in as well the further away we got from the city.

Doug asked, "so, you moved here from New York?"

I knew that I was probably going to have the same conversation with everyone. I needed to find the sweet spot of giving just enough information where they wouldn't ask too many questions to help me keep track of everything so I didn't have any discrepancies. "Yeah. My move across the country wasn't exactly as seamless as I was expecting."

"What do you mean?" He asked.

I elaborated, "I wasn't able to find a place in time, and all my luggage got lost en route."

"All of it?" His eyes bugged.

"Yeah," I sighed.

"Geez. Do you think you'll get it back?" He asked.

I shook my head, "no. I've called the airports and the airline, no one knows what happened to them."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Judy is letting me borrow some of her stuff until I can get my own clothes."

"Wait, you don't have a place? No apartment or nothing?" He asked.

"No."

His face got even more sympathetic than before. "You ain't living on the street, are you?"

"No, no I'm not," I quickly said, "I actually ran into Fuller last night and he's letting me crash at his house."

"Oh, that's good. Fuller has a real nice house."

"Yeah, it's super nice," I agreed.

"Well, if you ever think the place is too nice or too big, you're welcome to come right on over to mine. It ain't much but—" he replaced the end of his sentence with a shrug.

My lips tilted in a soft smile. That was very sweet and generous of him to offer. Me, a complete stranger. I could feel in my gut that he was a good guy. "I'll keep that in mind."

"I'm sure that if you ask any of us, we will all let you crash. Fuller would have been the hardest to agree to something like that and you already managed to break him down. He probably sees something in you."

I'm not a robot, even though I like to think that I am. I tried not to let his words touch me but I smiled and said, "thanks. He has been really helpful. Hopefully I can find an apartment soon and get off his back. And get a car."

"You had to leave your car in New York, huh?"

"I didn't have one over there."

"Well, shoot. If you ever need a ride, just give me a call." When we stopped at a stop light, he reached into his bag and grabbed a piece of paper and his pen. He jotted down his name and number and handed it to me.