Chapter 2

The bookstore on the Denton Square was in walking distance of UNT. It was a surprisingly nice day out for walking, the rains of the last few days having brought the temperatures down. Fall colors were starting to leak through, and there was a false spring greening that was just simple relief from the torturous summer. There were people on the square, sitting in the grass. It was not quite hippie in tone, but definitely a reflection of the university lifestyle. A kid playing his guitar. There was a coffee shop that held poetry readings on Tuesday nights. There was a British pub. There was comic book store, with comics, trading cards, card games, D&D, and figurines. It was not in competition with the book store that bought and sold and recycled everything. There were antique shops near the book store. It was possible to find just about anything here. Accept a Graflex camera flash. Ever since Star Wars, those were a commodity hard to find.

The book store was huge, hidden corners, ramps, up and down stairs. It smelled of books and dust and LPs. He selected books like a Saint holding a relic. He browsed some, spent time with some, and picked out one book that required a little more intimacy. He found a corner to sit in. “The User Illusion” Tor Nørretranders. He tried to read it without imposing his own system. Not liking it, he skimmed it for digestion later, in the event he became bored, and then put it back. He browsed magazines, kept a Bridal magazine in his arms along with an anime, and a Playboy wrapped in plastic.

“Hello.”

The voice belonged to a female, 18 or 19, Emo hair and clothes. A dark blue, plaid shirt, and black mini. Black lipstick. Black hose. Nike running shoes. She was close. He blinked. He looked to other side of himself to see if she was speaking to someone behind him, found he was alone and accepted she was indeed addressing him. His eyes went down to his shoes.

“Shyness is actually an adorable quality,” she said. “It denotes intelligence, humility, and a general respect for others. I am Tory. Tory Hicks”

Tory offered her hand. Her bracelet charm suggested Wiccan. Then he had flash insight that placed her. She was from the quantum physics class. She sat with friends, three quarters of the way down. He had noticed her as he had noticed every other female in class. With the exception of the Professor, and one guy up front who asked a ton of annoying questions, all the males in his class memory were simply silhouettes. They were ghost place-holders for real people he didn’t want to remember. He did not accept her hand. Other connections were highlighted: Tor, the author of the last book he skimmed. Hicks, the name of the airfield where his home was. If she wasn’t consistently in class, he would have thought she were a ghost. Could she be? Is the thing he is experiencing evolving?

“This is where you take my hand and say hi, my name is Jeremy,” Tory said. “Or Jere. I like Jere. You ever go by Jere?”

“No,” Jeremy said.

“Jeremy it is,” Tory said. “I am puzzled. Before today, I have never seen you in class. In hindsight, you have never missed a quantum physics class. Kind of spooky, don’t you think?”

“It doesn’t mean what you think it means,” Jeremy said, and turned and walked away.

Tory followed, not perturbed or turned off in the least. “I know. It’s probably not magic. It’s never magic. Just like it’s never aliens. Until it is, then it’s magical aliens. You do believe in aliens, don’t you?”

“Hypothetically or speculatively?” Jeremy asked.

“In actuality,” Tory asked.

Jeremy put his items on the counter. On doing so, the clerk suddenly noticed him, and came to do her job. “Oh, hello, Jeremy.”

“So you know him by name?” Tory asked.

“Sure. He comes in all the time,” the clerk said.

“Really? Does he ever flirt with the staff?” Tory asked.

“He has never flirted with the staff,” the clerk said.

“Interesting,” Tory said. “A mystery. He’s clearly not gay.”

“You presume I am not gay,” Jeremy said, looking at his shoes.

Her shoes were in his line of sight. As was her cleavage, as she was leaning into the counter, and him. She pulled the magazines he had selected out of the pile. She looked at him as if having won a game.

“Circumstantial artifacts that could be a distraction from the truth,” Jeremy said.

“Playboy, Marilyn Monroe, December 1953 - 54,175 copies sold,” Tory said. “I am a Marilyn freak.”

“I could be gay and still like Marilyn,” Jeremy said.

“True,” Tory mused.

“Or Carrie Radison,” the clerk added.

“Who?”

“Playboy, 1957, one million copies sold,” the clerk said. “That’s who you bought last time you were here. You paid in cash, which was impressive.”

“Oh? Do tell me more,” Tory said.

“Farah Faucet. You bought all of those, actually. And Raquel Welch,” the clerk said.

Jeremy blushed, dropped a hundred on the counter which more than covered his selected items, and pulled them off the counter. “Keep the change.”

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Tory said, following him. “Everyone likes naked women. I do.”

Outside on the corner, he stopped. “Why are you following me?”

“I am interested. Feels like fate,” Tory said.

“I am not interested,” Jeremy said.

“Can’t hardly blame you,” Tory said. “Gay or not, what girl could compete with the likes you’re holding. That and the airbrushed models in the Brides magazine, and streaming porn through cell phones, and hot babes in video games, a girl just doesn’t stand a chance these days. We practically have to put out on the first date just to get a meal. And, yes, I put out. Hell, we could even skip the meal. I don’t believe in teasing or prolonged foreplay. OMG, you’re blushing again. Have you ever been with a real girl? I mean, it’s not a shame if you haven’t, not trying to shame, sorry, I am a flibbertigibbet. Tell me you know that word.”

“Joe Versus the Volcano,” Jeremy said. “And, Sound of Music, ‘how do you solve a problem like Maria.’”

Tory smiled. “Nice. So, what sort of porn do you stream? Let me guess. POV, mother or step mother seduction.”

Jeremy met her eyes. “I don’t have a cell phone. I don’t have computer. I don’t have a television. I don’t have cable or internet.”

Tory sorted that. “I am super impressed,” she finally said. “So, hypothetically. If you wanted to call me, how would you do it?”

“Hypothetically,” Jeremy said. “You would tell me your number. I would call you.”

Tory spit out her phone number.

“I am not going to call you,” Jeremy said.

“Yeah, I think you will,” Tory said.

“I assure you, I am not going to call,” Jeremy said.

“You have a photographic memory,” Tory said. “Yeah, I stalked you since you came in the book store. I divined your nature by how you handle books. You’re smart. Much smarter than you let anyone know. And now, in addition to my number, I am placing a spell on you which will make the urge to call me increasingly more irresistible.”

Jeremy laughed and walked away.

“I’ll be waiting!” Tory said.

“Don’t hold your breath!” Jeremy yelled back.

“Okay,” Tory said. “Talk to you later.”

♫♪►

Jeremy took a train to down town Dallas. While on the train, Jeremy stowed his magazines in his backpack, except the bridal one. He flipped through it until he saw a particularly nice wedding ring, tore the page out, stowed the magazine, and sat back and studied the ring. He held out his hand, blinked, and was suddenly holding the very ring, and the box it came in, in his hand. The ring had disappeared from the magazine. No trashcan, so he stuck the advertisement in his pocket. He studied the ring further. It was perfect. Almost better than perfect the way it radiated light. It was as if it were radiating a light from a different source.

“Some girl is really lucky,” someone across the way said.

Preston became aware that the few people sharing the car with him were looking. Most found other things to do. The girl with an envious smile leaned closer. He put the ring back in the box, closed the box.

“May I ask, how much it set you back?” she asked.

“It didn’t set me back. Diamonds are as free as sunlight,” Jeremy said. “In fact, if people knew how easy they are to acquire, no one would buy them.”

“If that were true, you could give me that one,” she said, trying for humor. It could have been genuine humor. Maybe she was harmless.

He reacted emotionally: “And then you’d have to marry me, and it would be fine for a moment, till you discover diamonds don’t bring sustained happiness, and then you’d want something else, and if I failed to provide it for you, someone else would. That sort of relationship thing is called monkey branching, by the way,” Jeremy said. He looked beyond her, un-phased by the confusion growing on her face. “That’s not a just a girl thing. Everyone is doing that these days. And, it’s quite a reasonable thing to do, until you realize, statistically speaking, everyone in the world is likely not in the most ideal relationship. We are limited by region, language, age, social position, paradigms, personal filters, physical attributes, history, sphere of influence, family, friends, and gestalt of complicated and often opposing emotional vectors. Anyone of us is on the verge of being traded up or out or just dismissed completely. The promise of better is just a swipe away! Go ahead, take out your phone and ignore the one you’re with, ignore your children because the phone is the gateway to the ideal other. The people around you, they’re not important. They’re flawed. We have a decrease in tolerance for imperfections. And it’s not just that we can do better, we beat people up for imperfections. It doesn’t even matter if person’s mistake of immaturity was twenty years ago. Blow it up. Don’t believe me? Look at the trending social justice of movement Me2- anyone with a personal vendetta against someone can suddenly find themselves the most hated person in the world, whether that reasonable or not.” He held the ring-box up, flipping it open. “This is an illusion. It’s an ankle bracelet. It’s a collar. They moved it to the finger because people are okay biting off a finger to escape, not okay losing a neck. It marks you as property. The amount of money spent on weddings, dresses, receptions, rings, all of that would be better spent on property. At least then, if your marriage goes south, you can at least sale the property. Most marriages today go south. Everything goes south. You have nothing left but home videos that make you vomit because in hindsight, even that was just a performance, and a poor one at that. You want a movie? For 20 dollars you can get a Disney DVD. Wait long enough you can get the same movie for five dollars in the Walmart trash bin. Go for the older movies. They were better written anyway. This ring, after the divorce, suddenly becomes a despised object even a Hobbit wouldn’t take. This is a fifty thousand dollar ring. I bet I only get fifty dollars for it at the pawn shop. Diamonds are as common as granite; the DeBeers and advertisements have fooled the consumer into craziness. They need the divorce industry to keep diamonds rolling. Jewelry clerks are the equivalent of drug reps; they’re snake-oil, car salesmen who are peddling dirt. Don’t be fooled by the smile and sway of hips. They, too, are trying to swing up, bouncing off a few heads as they go.”

By the end of the impromptu speech, the woman wanted to run away. Several guys clapped in. One quit when his wife kicked him. Jeremy got out first. He slung his backpack, found his way out of the train station a little hurried, and finally made it to his next destination. The pawn shop. His prediction hadn’t been far off.

“I’ll give you sixty dollars for it,” the shop owner said. He was impressed with the ring. It was as if he was glamored. The diamond pegged in as real. The ring had the weight of gold. Under the glass the ring was brilliant.

“Seriously?” Jeremy asked.

“That’s the best I can do, especially without ID. I am giving you a break,” the man said, not putting the ring down. “I might give you seventy five if you show me a receipt and ID.”

“It was my mom’s. She died. No paperwork,” Jeremy said.

“Sorry to hear that,” the man said. He put three twenties down on the counter.

Jeremy feigned the struggle. “Fine,” he said.

The man pushed the twenties, took the ring to a safe, closed the box, closed the safe, and spun the dial. No sooner than Jeremy had scooped up the twenties, law enforcement scooped in to arrest him. Weapons came up. He quickly put his hands back on the counter, palms flat.

“Drop the back pack,” one of them yelled.

“Okay, hands coming up…”

Someone grabbed the backpack and impatiently pulled. It came free. Someone jumped in and pushed him hard against the counter.

“Not resisting!” Jeremy said, his face flat.

The only things found on him were a worry stone and a quartz crystal, front pocket. A necklace was broken when it was pulled free. The chain held tiny glass containing two seeds; a mustard seed and a rose seed. A pocket watch on a chain, held in the left pocket, with a Russian Star on the flip up cover. He was handcuffed and taken out to a car. The owner went to get the ring from the safe for the detective. He opened the safe. Neither the ring nor the box were in the safe. There was a driver license, his picture, a pseudonym for a sir name, and not his address.