Jack didn’t particularly care for mornings and he absolutely hated headaches. Yet despite his preferences, he found himself up early with a migraine on a disgustingly beautiful October day. The table besides him started to shake. He viewed mornings the same way most people viewed death: Inevitable but best left avoided. It wasn’t a matter of not being physical able to appreciate mother nature at the crack of dawn; at the age of 28 Jack Harigand was far from an old man. The table besides his twin sized bed continued to shake in an irritating rhythm.
He stood at a respectable five feet and nine inches, and his slightly muscular build meant that he easily could handle the trials and tribulations of daybreak. The only hint of aging on the man was a streak of white amongst his jet black hair, which could be covered up easily enough. A cheery, sing-song voice echoed from the room besides him: “He’ll just keep calling all day if you don’t answer, you know.” Jack took great care to avoid mornings, and he took especially great care to inform others that he enjoyed avoiding mornings. The vibrating of Jack’s flip phone in synch with the painful throbbing of his head could only mean one thing: the government fop wanted some grunt work done nice and early, and that Jack would be the lucky man put in charge of the job. Jack allowed the phone to vibrate for around seven seconds before he acquiesced and hit the small green button near the top of the cellular device.
“Hello? Jack? You there?” mumbled a shaky boyish voice from the phone. Jack sighed, the speaker was exactly who he assumed it would be.
“I thought I told you about my morning problem”
“Sorry, but this is work related." Jack resisted the temptation to yell duh.
“Alright then, what do you and your boys want of me today?” The flip phone crackled in response.
“There’s been a little incident at Bensen University that we’ve been assigned to check out.”
Jack let out a gruff snort. “That place is more stuck up than an airplane in a lightning storm, why do we gotta go there? Did Chik-Fil-A try to paint their walls yellow again?” After a momentary pause and a gulping sound, the boyish voiced answered, this time with a hint of irritation.
“Not quite Jackie, something tells me the stakes are a bit higher than the students ability to get some high quality chicken this time. Meet me at the southern campus entrance in three hours.”
Jack groaned. “Fine, but I told you once and I’ll tell you again, stop calling me Jackie. Name’s Jack, always will be, and that won’t change even if I have to spend the rest of my life doing your dirty work.” With a sigh, Jack hit a well-used red button on his cell phone and got out of bed. The alarm clock next to him glowed in the faintly dim room, reading Seven Fifteen in red lights. Jack somehow managed to saunter into his bathroom without falling over. The desired destination was the hygienic square, but a pounding headache begged to differ. An unsealed plastic bottle and ingestion of water (among other things) later, the man was ready to scrub the dirt of the previous evening away. Jack went into the shower and turned the hot water knob fully to the right. The steady stream of warm water refreshed his tired body and eased the pain of his aching head. Jack soaked in the steamy shower for a quarter of an hour, then got out and dried himself with his gray bath towel. After he wiped off the moisture and soap from his body, Jack looked in the mirror above the sink.
There was no facial hair present in dire need of shaving(there rarely was), so Jack decided to brush his teeth and take care of his messy hair. After using a liberal portion of store brand toothpaste on his mouth and brushing his hair so as to downplay his grey streak, Jack got out of the bathroom. Red electronic lights on the alarm clock set for one in the afternoon indicated that the time was now six thirty in the morning. If the year was still two thousand and ten, Jack would throw on a t-shirt, jeans that were two days old, some sandals, and be on his not so merry way. But with the New Year came a new set of circumstances, and Jack’s wardrobe had to not only be clean, but formal as well. Jack wandered over to his dresser, opened up the top drawer and searched for a pair of black socks. He spent about a minute sluggishly shuffling around before he could find two clean socks which were almost the same size and style. Jack grabbed the socks and a new pair of briefs, and shut his dresser drawer. He headed towards the closet, filled with the clothes he wished he wasn’t require to wear on the job.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The much despised items were on three neat little wooden hangers, evenly spaced out and on the left side of Jack’s closet. Jack never really cared for Khaki pants, they weren’t nearly as comfortable as jeans and seemed like they belonged more on the legs of a prep school kiddie than they belonged on Jack’s legs. The pants were more still more forgivable than the white shirt, red tie, and blue Brook’s Brothers jacket that Jack put on shortly after, however. Many athletes wore khaki pants, and Jack had a degree of respect for athletes. Unlike the fop, athletes spent their time honing their body and working hard. Athletes, in Jack’s opinion, wouldn’t attempt to fool a man with sly words and devious actions. They were on the up and up, and were much more reliable in their actions than the fop could ever be. The jacket and button down shirt, however, just wouldn’t do. Jack resented wearing a shirt that could only be dry cleaned and ironed almost as much as he disdained wearing a jacket worth more than he paid for the rent of his apartment on a yearly basis. The tie, well, he could live with the tie. Jack was always partial to the color red, and he had been marginally fortunate to receive at least one item of clothing from the fop’s diminutive friend that didn’t make him nauseous. Jack attempted unsuccessfully to get his tie at a decent looking length. Right as he started to undo his knot, the door to his room was thrust open and a energetic figure burst into the room.
“Well don’t you look fine!” exclaimed an energetic young voice. Jack chuckled. “I look about as fine as you drive, Mo.” He turned around to properly talk to his roommate. Moira, or as Jack liked to call her, “Mo”, was a young lady around the age of seventeen. She stood at five feet and four inches, and enjoyed chatting and exchanging jabs about as much as Jack enjoyed sleeping. Her platinum blonde hair struck a sharp contrast to Jack’s –mostly- black mop.
“No one looks that fine, honey. When are we leaving anyways?”
Jack finally managed to get his tie at a length he was comfortable with. “The fop wants me to meet him at the southern entrance of Bensen University in about two and a half hours.”
Mo giggled. “Bensen? Did the frat boys have too much of a good time last evening?”
Jack slouched down on his bed. “Something like that. Every time the fop sends me there I have to solve some petty matter or the other.” Mo played with a lock of her very light blonde hair.
“Well, we better get a move on then. Bensen University is about a two and a half drive from here, and that’s assuming we don’t get any traffic from Charlotte. Oh, and don’t forget your hat, I got it for you for Christmas for a reason.” Before he could protest, Moira dashed to the closet and with lightning fast speed put a sort of tacky fedora on Jack’s head.
“And what makes you think I’m gonna wear this?”, he asked.
“Because I ain’t gonna drive you if you don’t, and traffic is just gonna get worse and worse the longer you stall.”
Jack reached into his khaki pants pocket and tossed a key to Mo.
“Let’s be off then. Maybe if we’re lucky, I’ll be able to punch a drunk pledge in the face.”
Mo caught the key and curtsied. “I like the way you think Jack.” Mo opened the door and unlocked the door to Jack’s jeep. “But we’re playing my tunes this time.”
Although Jack tried his very hardest to look annoyed, he couldn’t help but let a hint of a smile emerge on his face. The drive to Bensen University from Charlotte is a scenic one. Even if one were experienced enough to know the most direct route like Moira did, he or she would still be forced to take small roads that remained antiques of the old South and the many tobacco plantations. About an hour and half into the drive to Bensen, a traveler would have many opportunities to see old white wooden manor houses and old tobacco fields which stretched wide and far for miles. At about two hours in, the journey would offer travelers a chance to take in dilapidated shacks and former scanty towns that the share-croppers and overseers would live in during the winter, when the optimal time for harvesting tobacco had past. Finally, as the seasoned adventurers came within ten minutes to the Bensen University campus, their eyes would be able to witness the lush green hills, two story houses and magnolia trees that defined the town of Bensen. After navigating through the small but self suffficent town, the traveler would arrive at the southern gate to Bensen, a simple eight foot tall metal gate with Bensen’s signature cursive B in the middle. If one were a student or faculty member, a wallet sized identification would be the only thing needed to open the gate.
Unfortunately, neither Jack nor Moira had such a card. The visitor’s parking, in sharp contrast to Jack’s memory of his last visit to the school, was mostly vacant. In fact, the only other cars that were present at all were two campus police vans and a supply truck for the on campus coffee shop. Mo found a spot close to the campus entrance and put the Jeep into neutral. “I take it that blondie didn’t tell you that the gate would be closed today, right?”
Jack pinched the temple of his forehead and sighed, his gray eyes narrowing. “He never really tells me much.” Jack straightened his tie. “You stay here with the car, I’ll talk to someone to get inside and see what that blue eyed boy scout wants.”
Mo pouted. “ Aw shucks, you never let me in on any of the fun.”