• Chapter 1
    The Finer Points of Beard Scruff

    John scratched his chin. A fine patchwork mass of scraggly beard hair had started growing in, connected to the shining nothing on his head by two misshapen sideburns. A gurgle in his gut let him know it was time for a meal. He rhythmically counted the change in his pocket, adding it all up according to size. "Three dollars and fifty-six...seven...eight cents," he mumbled to himself.
    Channel 6 kicked on in the back room. A lovely female voice picked up in the middle of a report on the most recent “breaking news.” "I’ve just received word that the republic of China has announced the first successfully cloned pig heart.”
    "Sir, can I help you?" A nervous looking teenager stepped to the counter. "Sorry. I must have zoned out." The next gurgle left the teenager staring incredulously. "Would you like something to eat?" "Yeah...sorry, give me a minute" Scanning the counter, his eyes locked on something and his stomach told him he was looking in the right direction. "Planters... Or Emerald Nuts.."
    John‘s feet met cracked pavement. He shoved the peanuts back into his pocket and began enjoying the city noise. It all felt… free. He started walking. Home was a fair distance away, but he was used to it. The store quickly vanished from site, quickly replaced by other buildings, each more rural than the last. A few medical vans passed by, followed by small cars and the like. He was halfway home before it happened again, the same armored truck/ambulance hybrids from before. John could just barely see one of the drivers turn as he drove by. It was just enough for the driver behind him to scrape his bumper. They sped up, leaving John curious and alone.
    It had only taken a week to learn to take the back streets. It was a little longer, but there were far fewer people. Five, maybe six cars would pass, the few other people that had learned to avoid the over population of main roads. New York was a busy state. The past eight weeks had made him familiar enough to shave some time off of the walk by walking through someone's yard here, an outcropping of trees there, and of course the many parking lots. John often wondered where he had worked. Maybe a factory. The thought had passed his mind. The first day he could remember, waking up in the apartment a month ago with brown cargo pants and a smooth, clean shaven face that showed off his jaw line in a much more flattering way than the mesh of untrimmed fur living on his face now, he had a few scars, who knows? Working around furnaces in a factory would certainly teach you to shave the things you didn't want to catch on fire.
    John stared off into the sky. The door to the apartment building was unlocked, as usual. "Rodriguez, I'm home." He could hear scurrying coming from his room. A short stroll through the hall left him in front of a jarred door. He stepped in. “Rod?“ John quickly found the bed, plopping down and wallowing into a comfortable position. He felt around till his hands landed on a soft brown leather jacket. Hooking a finger in one of the holes in the lining, he pulled it over his chest, not bothering to deal with the mess covering the room. The jacket had been worn out for much longer than he could have possibly owned it.
    A little white mouse performed a perfect, 5 point dive onto John's face, squealing mischievously all the way down. John jumped and bashed his head on the headboard. He stifled a curse. "Why?” John took a moment to swivel his head and look at the little mouse. “Why would you do that?” He was answered by a curious little stare. An awkward silence came and went as John started laughing hysterically, causing his tiny friend a share of confusion. “Here.“ He reached into his pocket and passed a left-over cashew from "dinner” to his shoulder; Rodriguez new perch. The mouse accepted it greedily. He groaned and laid back against the headboard, imagining a head shaped dent in the thick wood. Rodriguez managed to disappear from John's shoulder in his usual fashion, now sitting on the bedside table with the cashew hanging from his cute little mouth. The mouse’s ears perked at a click from John‘s TV. The buttons had never worked. Still, as long as the television was plugged in, it would turn on, change channels, sometimes even set timers. Tonight it fancied the local channels. John entertained the thought of a long lost remote looking for revenge by inconveniencing the television’s owner with random button mashes.
    The report picked up where it had left off. A make-up coated woman stood beside a man in a lab coat. Small eyes peaked around a wrinkled face, all outlined by a circle of neatly combed hair connecting with his small gray beard.
    "We are working through some…issues.”
    "Are you talking about the protesters?"
    "Well, yes. At this rate, cloning won't ever be legal. The Republi..."
    A small squeak interrupted the interview. Rodriguez curled up on John chest, enjoying the man‘s rhythmic breathing. It didn‘t take long for both to fall sound asleep.

    This is how it had been for 2 months. Troubled dreams of men in test tubes would be cliché. In fact, John hadn‘t had a dream in weeks. Every so often, the TV would turn on and he would dream about whatever channel happened to be on. Sometimes it was “invigorating” shampoo, sometimes the newest hit drama, sometimes he was even lucky enough to dream about dancing snacks. There were no hints to his previous existence. John had simply woken up in an unfamiliar apartment with a black backpack, three pairs of brown cargo pants, excluding the ones he had on, his already-worn, matching jacket, four olive green medium t-shirts in a dresser as well as a license, $48, and an empty stomach. A kind old lady owned the apartments. The woman had deep set eyes and a hip that must have been older than she was. She had taken to him immediately, and that was good If rent had been any more than $48 for two months, he would have been sleeping on a bench. She gave him money for food, sometimes even preparing a meal for him herself, and never charged him a dime. She proved as good of a mom as the one he couldn‘t remember. On the many occasions when John felt it necessary to apologize for his lack of funds, she would simply say "Karma" and go about her business. Then, a month and a half later, she died. Heart attack. Or maybe kidney failure. One of those things that people call a natural death. The tenants left one by one, and John simply stopped feeling the need to keep the place clean. Rodriguez and a few of his friends were soon to follow.
    John had attended the funeral. It was a small affair. In fact, it appeared as though the few other tenants were the only people she bothered meeting. No children, no husband. He would have cried with the other people if he had known her longer. She certainly was kind enough. She proved that by leaving him the contents of her apartment. John had felt a little crept out by the task of sorting through the room, so he did a sort of inventory before leaving everything just as it was. Assorted women's clothing, those cliché things that every old woman seems to wear, a television, a large bed, and an ancient dresser that looked like it had been opened by everyone in the city at least a dozen times. He opened the first few drawers before leaving. What seemed to him to be a decent amount of money, since the $100 could keep him eating nuts and drinking Faygo for months, a dusty Military issue knife with a six inch blade, a 9 millimeter, no doubt a relic from when someone might have had incentive to break in, and the thing that had caused him to finally decide to leave the room. A dead, elderly woman's dainty things were folded neatly in the fourth drawer.
    John woke up and mumbled something incoherent. 6 am. Resting his head on the crook of his arm, he scanned the room for his little buddy. Rodriguez had managed to climb the television, his little chest rising and falling with each breath. John jumped up. There was no need in trying to nap. At 6 AM he was wide awake and habitually making the bed, just like the night before, and the night before, every day for two months. He turned on the lights, trudged through the mess, and headed across the hall. Today was the day he would finally claim his inheritance. At least, he would claim what of it he wanted. He had decided to leave the reliable TV and keep his phantom one. It wasn’t long before he was done with everything but the dresser. The cash would feed him for a month or two. The hand gun and the knife would go in his backpack, for lack of a better place. Nothing else really held his interest, so he walked back to his own dirty little appartment and sat down at the foot of his bed, waiting for the news... or a comedian...or whatever the television decided on. After several uneventful minutes passed, he finally gave up and set out for breakfast back at the gas station.
    A familiar young woman stood behind the counter. Shoulder length blonde hair with streaks of bubble-gum pink greeted him. "John, your early!" she squealed. He held back a grin, and forced what he assumed was a frown for what was quite possibly the first time since Rodriguez had inadvertantly given him a concussion. He focused on Julie’s perfectly curved nose as he spoke. "I'm sorry, I guess I'll come back in a couple of hours..." Never in her life had Julie gotten a joke. Today would be no different. She interrupted him almost immediately.
    "That’s not what I meant!" she paused, distracted for a moment by John's notorious gurgling stomach, "...breakfast?".
    "Yeah... Hold on..." John paused for a few minutes, trying to remember whether the commercial with the dancing potatoes was Pringles or Ruffles. Julie stopped him before he could make a decision.
    "Oh no, not today you’re not. You’re gonna kill yourself eating nothing but that junk. Here."
    She threw a sausage biscuit on the counter in front of John.
    "I don't have the money. Sorry Juls."
    She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. She scooted the biscuit closer with a sudden jerk of inspiration.
    "Breakfast is on me today."
    "Juls, you're not flat enough to be a table." Julie stared puzzled at him until he broke the silence.
    "Are you sure?"
    "You've listened to me complain about my boyfriend for weeks, this is the least I can do. Now go get a drink," she commanded. He disappeared behind a stand of snacks, passed the liquor cabinet he had learned to avoid since his last encounter, and came back holding a Faygo. She looked at it and sighed. a
    "Faygo for breakfast again?"
    "Hey... Its orange flavored."
    "You can drink syrup if you want."
    "I'm an addict. Let a man have his soda."
    Juls giggled. Finally, and it wasn't even at a joke. Julie looked at the clock to confirm the morning rush had passed before sitting down at a small food bar across from a set of stools to have her morning rant with John. He didn't mind. It was good to have companionship aside from Rodriguez. John was content, so to speak, despite the fact that he was basically a bum with cable. He finished his biscuit and listened to the pretty young girl complain about how her boyfriend hadn't called her last night, even though she wasn't at home and it would have went to the answering machine. She finally looked out of her own world to see John stared lovingly at his biscuit, which he had been holding to his mouth for an unexplainably long time. Attempted speech worked its way through her giggles.
    "What are you doing?"
    John gave an innocent look. "I'm whispering sweet nothings in its sausage."
    Juls lips curled around her reply in an entirely childish way. "God John, you're so weird."
    John just smiled and took another bite of his delicious seductress.