He sighed. He should have been ecstatic, but instead he was worrying about some stupid social function.
“Why couldn't you have just kept your mouth shut?” he cursed at the non-existent student.
Suddenly desperate for caffeine, he realized he had never gotten the soda from the machine.
At least he had an excuse for not going. In his experience these things were good for nothing except sitting alone on the edge of the room, trying to think of something to say. He had been invited to exactly zero parties all throughout high school, but the weddings of relatives had gone thusly. And he hated staying out that late anyway. All that ever came of it was a desperate need to get back home where it was safe. Fifty dollars was a lot of money to spend doing something he hated. He tapped his fingers on the windowsills as he marched down the hall.
But still...
How did everyone else make it seem so effortless? How could they talk through an entire chemistry class about how much they had to drink the night before and he could barely pay his rent? How was it that Sara Something and Josh Man could hold down study and party and work?
Jonah shook his head, slipping his hands through his hair and noting the few strands that came away between his fingers.
Absently he kicked the wall. How did they do it? It seemed to him that if he could just analyze it, if he could just see them in action maybe he could figure it out. He had managed to figure out quite a few things just by studying them. If he could look and listen and then maybe come up with an idea...
He pictured what it would be like to be talking through a whole chemistry class about a Christmas party, maybe have something to talk about other than plant growth rates or gene transcription rates, and maybe have someone want to listen.
His mouth turned up into a slight smile.
Then it turned back down.
“I still don't have fifty dollars,” he muttered as he took out his wallet in the looming shadow of the soda machine, half to get the necessary quarters, half to verify its cavernous folds. Inside there was the lone ten-dollar bill that was supposed to last him the rest of the week. “How am I supposed to get fifty dol—”
The question stuck in his throat along with his breath.
Were he a different person with different priorities and different thoughts he might have come upon this combination of question and answer days earlier, if not right away. The thoughts of the ten-dollar bill overlapped instantly with the mountain of pens that were cluttering up his apartment and he could hear the sound of some cosmic key turning within a cosmic lock. Tumblers aligned and a door opened onto a bright shining vista. Momentarily it was obscured by several inconsequential details and then he found himself staring into the Promised Land.
His hands shook as he took hold of the soda machine to keep his balance, his breathing was now heavy and laboured and the slight smile returned to his face, growing ever wider with each passing second.
Were anyone else working late into the night they may have been deeply disturbed by the sound of Jonah McAllister laughing like a maniac.
Jonah McAllister Breaks the Law
Jonah McAllister stood, pacing, outside of the pawnshop for nearly half an hour. When he turned toward the window he could see the broker behind the fencing wire staring back at him. There was a mixture of fear and anger in those eyes, most likely caused by the fact that he was certain the stranger marching back and forth in front of the store had robbery on his mind. That or the fact that no one had gone in all afternoon with Jonah patrolling outside.
“Let him think what he wants,” Jonah muttered, unable to restrain himself. He had become more and more careful over the past few days with his nervous habits, now acutely aware of what they could do if not held in check.
He was almost as aware of the bulge in his front pocket and though he slumped in an attempt to hide it he knew that anyone walking by would notice it too. He doubted anyone would try anything, not in broad daylight on such a busy street, but anyone might mark him as worth watching… for later. With the economy the way it was there was no telling what people would stoop to. He should get in there, complete his transaction and then get out, but the sweat on his palms gave him pause.
The knowledge that what he was about to do was wrong lingered in the peripheries of his brain.
Finally he drew a sharp breath through his teeth and grasped the tarnished brass handle on the chipped door.
“What do you want?” The question was simultaneous with the ringing of the bell above the door.
Jonah nearly jumped clear of his skin at the harshness of it, but he found composure in the fact that he had not been into the laboratory in nearly a week and would not be paid for the time he missed. He fished around in his front pocket, coming up with a slick of bills that he held in his clammy, sweating hand. They were all crisp, brand new, bound with a clean rubber band, bought especially for the occasion. In all there had to be
