Commissioned by Anonymous
“Alright, miss, here we are—and feel free to call anytime you need a lift,” Miles said, as he pulled up next to the curb.
“Thanks again, sir,” the girl in the backseat of the car said, grabbed her backpack and climbed out of the campus security car, which had picked her up at the library and dropped her off in front of the house. In the front seat, Miles and Ed watched to make sure she got into her house, and then set off back to campus a few blocks away. Miles had pulled away and reached the end of the block before Ed started to giggle in the seat next to him.
“Shut up, I don’t want to hear it.”
“Ha, she called you ‘sir’! I always knew this day would come,” Ed said, laughing openly now, “I can’t believe it, my little security bumpkin has finally become a man.”
Miles scowled as he turned down a sidestreet and skulked a bit in the driver’s seat. He was at most six or seven years older than the college girl he’d just dropped off, but apparently he was already out of touch enough to warrant a “sir.” He didn’t want to be a “sir,” and he was sick and tired of working this damn security job. He’d been assigned to work with security services while he was attending school as a Freshman, and that’s when he’d first met Ed. Ed was an old timer—he’d worked for the school for close to forty years now, and as much as Miles liked the old guy, he didn’t want to be him, and yet it seemed like everything in his life had conspired to trap him here, in this faux squad car, dropping off girls that never seemed to age at the same houses off campus, and he gave a heavy sigh.
“Aww, hey, cheer up—you’re only as old as you feel.”
“And what does that make you, eighty?”
“Oh don’t get snappy with me, boy, we still have five hours on this shift, and I don’t want you getting all pissy and morose. It’s annoying. This is my last semester after all—maybe be a little happy that at least it only took close to half a century for me to escape.”
“Don’t remind me. I don’t want to be stuck doing this for the rest of my life. I had plans man, I had…gah…” Miles stopped himself before he rehashed the same old sob story for Ed to hear once again. The old guard was way more tolerant of his bullshit than he had any right to be, but Miles still didn’t want to push him away with a plea for pity. “Sorry, I won’t get into it.”
“Trust me, I understand better than most, kid.”
They got back to campus, and parked in a lot outside close to the library, ready for the next person who wanted to be ferried from safe haven to safe haven, and neither of them said anything for a while. Ed was either sleeping or pretending to sleep, and Miles was thinking back to all of those failed applications to grad school, how all of that work had been for nothing, all because his thesis’ conclusions had contradicted those of Dr. Taylor, the head of the chemistry department on campus, and his big money donors. Miles had been the most gifted student the department had ever seen, but thanks to Dr. Taylor’s insistence or writing him a personal recommendation, not a single school would accept him for graduate study. Effectively blacklisted and muzzled, he’d managed to receive a full time position on the security staff at campus, and here he was still. He could see the science building from where he was parked, and there were a few offices still lit, and he realized with a start that Dr. Taylor’s light was on. “That fucker…” Miles said under his breath.
“Who, your Goliath?”
“Yeah, shut the fuck up.”
“Hey, I’m sympathetic kid, but academia is a monster. You were too much of an idealist—you wanted to be right, more than you wanted to be successful. Life’s full of tradeoffs—you can’t get something for nothing.”
“What would I have to give up for a chance at revenge?”
Something for Something (Part 1)
Published
Stuck as Santa 