Cassidy Kane is a man with a plan.
Not a very good man, and not much of a plan, as Kane would be the first to admit. But a man and a plan, nonetheless.
Cassidy Kane has eighty-eight dollars in cash, a second or thirdhand leather jacket, an out-of-state license, half a pack of Marlboros, a Zippo lighter, a deck of cards, a chip on his shoulder, two dusty boots, his GED, no beard, a rusty pickup with one hundred and fifty thousand miles on it, one semester between him and an associate's degree in information technology, and a lease on a crap apartment that ends Monday. The lease ends Monday, that is. Not the apartment.
And a plan. Cassidy Kane has a plan.
Monday morning bright and early C. K. Ziegler will drop off the paperwork, signed and dated, that will enable him to take an indefinite leave of medical absence from his studies and hightail it out of town. There are miles to go and promises to keep, but some of those promise-holders are going to have to take an IOU and some of them are going to get a big FU because as of 9:05 a.m. Cassidy Kane is going to be unavailable, unreachable, untouchable till god knows when.
Ziegler's the name on the license and the lease, but it doesn't have the ring he's going for. Cassidy Kane sounds like somebody, it's a name you remember, it's got its own rhythm, its own music. That's what he told himself when he started going by Kane. The alliteration doesn't hurt either.
Z always comes last. Sometimes that's a bad thing, sometimes not.
Right now Cassidy's sitting Indian-style on the foldout sofa bed in the crap apartment studying a map of Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio with another of Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky underneath. Indian-style is what they called it in kindergarten when they'd gather around for circle time or story time or juice time. Kindergarten was o-fuckin'-kay.
There's a ticking noise in the apartment and it's not the clock, there isn't one. It is not the freezer making ice and it is not the tapping of a woodpecker. It's not the drip of the sink, he fixed it, it's not the lady next door at her knitting. No, it is the ballpoint metronome of the one non-crap pen left in the crap apartment tapping against the back of his neck as he tries to think. If it were a clock, or ice, if it were a woodpecker or the erstwhile drip or next door needles clickclacking or even his own heart beating too loud he wouldn't be able to focus, would have to go out, walk around, clear his head, but for some reason the pen on his neck helps him focus.
A man. A plan. A canal. Panama.
He opens his eyes. Studies the veins and arteries of interstates, toll roads, freeways. He sketches a rough itinerary with the cap still on, weighs the merits and deficiencies of the snaky curve his brain superimposes on the map. He resumes tapping. A minute goes by. Another. Twenty minutes go by on the clock that isn't there, dozens of proposed and rejected routes crumpled up and strewn about the crap apartment of his mind. He's always sort of wanted to see Louisville, but it may just not be in the cards this time around. Cassidy rubs his forehead wearily. He needs a drink.
The refrigerator is inevitably empty but he opens it anyway, hoping less for a beer than a magic genie. Nope on both counts. Luckily, Cassidy Kane, although he was only being in the scouts for a couple months, is always prepared, in this case with a half a dozen mostly clean empty mason jars lined up alongside the sink. But instead of using one of jars, he sticks his head right in the sink and drinks straight from the faucet, letting the cold water run all down his face into his hair down his neck. He pulls his head out and shakes it like a dog and blinks.
Maps. Right.
Not a very good man, and not much of a plan, as Kane would be the first to admit. But a man and a plan, nonetheless.
Cassidy Kane has eighty-eight dollars in cash, a second or thirdhand leather jacket, an out-of-state license, half a pack of Marlboros, a Zippo lighter, a deck of cards, a chip on his shoulder, two dusty boots, his GED, no beard, a rusty pickup with one hundred and fifty thousand miles on it, one semester between him and an associate's degree in information technology, and a lease on a crap apartment that ends Monday. The lease ends Monday, that is. Not the apartment.
And a plan. Cassidy Kane has a plan.
Monday morning bright and early C. K. Ziegler will drop off the paperwork, signed and dated, that will enable him to take an indefinite leave of medical absence from his studies and hightail it out of town. There are miles to go and promises to keep, but some of those promise-holders are going to have to take an IOU and some of them are going to get a big FU because as of 9:05 a.m. Cassidy Kane is going to be unavailable, unreachable, untouchable till god knows when.
Ziegler's the name on the license and the lease, but it doesn't have the ring he's going for. Cassidy Kane sounds like somebody, it's a name you remember, it's got its own rhythm, its own music. That's what he told himself when he started going by Kane. The alliteration doesn't hurt either.
Z always comes last. Sometimes that's a bad thing, sometimes not.
Right now Cassidy's sitting Indian-style on the foldout sofa bed in the crap apartment studying a map of Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio with another of Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky underneath. Indian-style is what they called it in kindergarten when they'd gather around for circle time or story time or juice time. Kindergarten was o-fuckin'-kay.
There's a ticking noise in the apartment and it's not the clock, there isn't one. It is not the freezer making ice and it is not the tapping of a woodpecker. It's not the drip of the sink, he fixed it, it's not the lady next door at her knitting. No, it is the ballpoint metronome of the one non-crap pen left in the crap apartment tapping against the back of his neck as he tries to think. If it were a clock, or ice, if it were a woodpecker or the erstwhile drip or next door needles clickclacking or even his own heart beating too loud he wouldn't be able to focus, would have to go out, walk around, clear his head, but for some reason the pen on his neck helps him focus.
A man. A plan. A canal. Panama.
He opens his eyes. Studies the veins and arteries of interstates, toll roads, freeways. He sketches a rough itinerary with the cap still on, weighs the merits and deficiencies of the snaky curve his brain superimposes on the map. He resumes tapping. A minute goes by. Another. Twenty minutes go by on the clock that isn't there, dozens of proposed and rejected routes crumpled up and strewn about the crap apartment of his mind. He's always sort of wanted to see Louisville, but it may just not be in the cards this time around. Cassidy rubs his forehead wearily. He needs a drink.
The refrigerator is inevitably empty but he opens it anyway, hoping less for a beer than a magic genie. Nope on both counts. Luckily, Cassidy Kane, although he was only being in the scouts for a couple months, is always prepared, in this case with a half a dozen mostly clean empty mason jars lined up alongside the sink. But instead of using one of jars, he sticks his head right in the sink and drinks straight from the faucet, letting the cold water run all down his face into his hair down his neck. He pulls his head out and shakes it like a dog and blinks.
Maps. Right.
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