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  Chapter 5: A Peculiar Old Man

  The driver was showering when he heard his earpiece buzzing on the counter. He didn’t have to clock in for another two hours, so, he didn’t usually answer his ear piece. If his boss truly needed him, he’d dial his home phone.

  As he ran the bar of green soap over his body, he looked at the long scars that covered his torso and remembered the accident that put them there. The deep lines looked like small canyons running both vertically and horizontally across his body.

  “Sure wish I could afford the surgery to get rid of those ugly things,” the driver muttered.

  He said that, but he knew in the back of his mind that he would hesitate before deciding to go under the knife and remove them. For starters, he hated doctors, and he avoided them as much as possible. Second, he operated under the belief of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

  Although the scars were clearly a sign of a broken body, they didn’t really bother him physically. It wasn’t like he felt constant pain or they kept him from doing anything in life.

  Deciding to put his thoughts on the day ahead, he wondered who he’d pick up today.

  Scratching on his bathroom door made him realize it was time to get out of the shower. He sighed and absorbed another minute or two of hot water. In truth, he loved taking scalding hot showers, and he’d stay in there all day if it wouldn’t run up his water bill to a ridiculous level.

  Turning off the shower, he got out and was hit by the colder air in his bathroom.

  “Go lie down, Solstice. I’ll be out in a minute,” the driver said.

  The scratching on the door stopped, and his red husky walked across the floor to her bed to lie down and wait patiently for her friend to get her breakfast.

  The driver wrapped his towel, a personalized brown cotton bath towel with his initials sewn into it, around his waist and went out into the living room where Solstice was waiting on him. His usual routine in the morning was to get up around 6:30 a.m. and hop into the shower. If he went too far past 7 a.m., she’d come scratch on the door, wanting breakfast.

  She sat up and stared at him from her brown and white doggie bed as he walked behind his black leather couch and into the kitchen. Reaching above his fridge, he opened his wooden cabinets and pulled out a can of turkey flavored dog food, her favorite.

  Solstice had followed him into the kitchen and was panting excitedly next to her red plastic food dish that was a little to the left of the sink on a small towel with her blue plastic water dish.

  Pulling out a white can opener, he put the dog food on the counter and attached the tool to the can. Turning the hand key, he watched the can slowly spin on the counter.

  Solstice waited patiently until he put the food in her bowl and stepped away before she devoured her meal.

  “Well, I gotta hand it to her. . . the gal does have some restraint, waiting until I put the food down and not jumping on me while I’m getting it ready,” the driver muttered going back into the bathroom.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was almost ready to leave. He walked into his living room and opened the sliding door that went back out onto his small patio.

  “Solstice. Go do your business,” he said.

  She did as she was told and trotted outside.

  She was usually good after that. She rode in his front seat and didn’t bark or anything. Some customers were a little wary of her at first, but she usually slept when others were in the vehicle, so, they couldn’t care less.

  The red husky pawed lightly on the sliding glass when she was ready to come back inside.

  The driver didn’t have a big yard, but his little single story blue townhouse did have enough of one that she could roam around the back part of it inside a fence and be okay for a while. There was a large fastiaga tree in the back that was about 40 feet tall. It provided shade for half the yard, and Solstice had grown accustomed to an afternoon nap under it on the driver’s off days.

  The driver and Solstice exited his blue townhouse and walked over to Starla.

  Before he made it to his cab, he saw his neighbors Travis and Krickett next door. He saw what appeared to be Krickett in a tiger costume laying on the grass while Travis attempted to paint her.

  I’ll never understand those two, the driver thought to himself as he got inside and turned on Starla. Her engine hummed to life, taking a few seconds to wake up.

  “Well, at least they never cause me trouble,” the driver muttered.

  The driver had mostly good luck with his neighbors in the small city of Lefont. Travis and Krickett were a little weird, but he never had any trouble from them. . . although one time their cat had snuck into his house through an open window and pounced on his bed.

  The black furball was immediately grabbed and carried by the scruff of his neck back over to his rightful home. They were very apologetic, and the driver never had another problem out of them.

  Still, if that cat insisted on breaking and entering again, he’d find a nice surprise with multiple teeth waiting for him.

  Solstice had never attacked anyone, but she was growing rather possessive of her new owner as of late. She didn’t like to be away from him for long, and she didn’t like anyone else getting too close. When someone did get close, she’d usually walk between the driver and the other person and sit down, acting as a barrier.

  The red husky didn’t growl. . . she simply placed herself there to let the stranger know that the driver was HER friend.

  The driver was heading for the Starlight Taxi hub in Lefont when his earpiece buzzed.

  “You didn’t pick up when I rang this morning,” a familiar voice said.

  Great. It’s always a wonderful start to a day when my boss calls me personally, the driver thought.

  “Sorry Chris, I was in the shower at the time,” the driver said.

  “I have told you repeatedly to call me Mr. Thompson,” Chris said.

  “Sorry, Chris.”

  “I get nothing but attitude from you even after all I’ve done. You’re a piece of work.”

  “Chris. I’m on my way into the hub, and I’m really early this time. Stop riding my ass. You can’t afford the fare,” the driver said.

  “That is no way to talk to your boss!”

  “I’ve worked for your slave-driving self for 25 years, Chris. When I consider you my boss, I’ll let you know,” the driver said, chuckling.

  “Just get your smart ass to the Central Mall in Citeria on Saturn! Your client will be an older gentleman wearing a suit and sitting on a bench outside of the restaurant circle. Marty would do it, but he took off an hour early due to feeling sick,” Chris said.

  “Working the assignments switchboard today? Where is Pattie?”

  “She is out sick, and I don’t have a replacement coming in for a couple of hours,” Chris said.

  “Well shoot, Chris. You might actually have two hours of work on your time card this week,” the driver said, laughing.

  “Listen here, asshole! If you aren’t at that mall in three hours, you’ll be working double shifts all weekend,” Chris yelled.

  “Now you and I both know you won’t do that. Your budget wouldn’t allow for all the overtime,” the driver said.

  A loud click was heard in the driver’s ear.

  “Old man has quite a temper. I love getting him riled up,” the driver said, laughing.

  Solstice looked up at him from the passenger seat.

  “Oh come on. Any blood pressure issues he has are on him. It isn’t my fault if he gets carried away,” the driver said.

  She sneezed and went back to sleep.

  “Don’t you get an attitude with me, missy! Dealing with the old man is bad enough,” the driver said, his hand slowly reaching for the pocket of his green button-down shirt.

  His fingers pulled out a cigarette cautiously and put it in his mouth. Then, he quietly pulled out a lighter, glancing over at the husky. As soon as he clicked it, her
ears perked up, and she sat upright and howled incessantly. It was loud and hurt the driver’s ears.

  “Okay! Okay! I won’t even light it, you dumb animal.”

  He mashed the unused cigarette into the ashtray grumpily and continued on his way to Saturn, hopping on Intergalactic Road 33.

  There were a large number of truckers on the road with him, which didn’t surprise the driver one bit. He didn’t like driving next to large trucks, but it couldn’t be helped. Saturn had been terraformed into a plant haven. There were forests, jungles, and rainforests all over the planet, and wood was the number one number one export.

  Scientists had spent decades working to terraform the planet, stabilizing the atmosphere, installing several satellites to act as miniature artificial suns, and even making the surface suitable for plant life.

  It truly was incredible what space exploration had done over time. Engineers took a planet that had an average temperature of -280 degrees and brought that temperature up to make the planet more like that of Earth.

  That was all above the driver’s head, though. He just drove a car through space and took people where they needed to go. And now, he’d added the responsibility of feeding a dog to his list.

  Solstice got up and stretched as Starla came down into the atmosphere of Saturn. The driver was in the southern hemisphere of Saturn below the ring and heading for the biggest city on the forest-covered planet.

  He flew above the trees staying out of the way of truckers loading up lumber and taking it to various destinations for high fees.

  After about 30 minutes, the driver came to one of the few parts of the planet where the trees vanished and were replaced by skyscrapers.

  “Welcome to Citeria, Solstice,” the driver said, scratching the side of her head.

  Geez, it’s been a few months since I’ve picked up anyone here, the driver thought to himself as he found his way through busy streets and made it to the mall.

  He drove around the mall a couple times before finding the restaurant circle. It was a newer part of the complex that wasn’t here the last time he picked up a client at the Central Mall.

  They’d made the mall even bigger, included a few dozen more stores, and added nine new parking lots.

  There really is a lot of money in Citeria because of timer exports,” the driver muttered, looking around at the four story-mall before him.

  White flowers lined the sidewalk he parked next to after he spotted an old man in a suit on a bench a few feet behind the mulch where the plants were. It was covered in shade provided by a small urban-type tree, the kind cities usually plant along sidewalks to look nice.

  The elderly man appeared to be in his 70s and was balding. He still had some white hair growing on the sides and rear of his skull, though. He had a long wild white beard that matched the color his hair.

  The driver got out of Starla and walked around to open the door for him. The man was carrying a small potted tree in one hand and a small brown satchel in the other.

  “Can I put one of those in my vehicle for you?”

  “No. I have them,” the man said, firmly.

  The driver didn’t judge his tone to be rude. He was just very direct. The driver had taken enough passengers across the galaxy to know the difference.

  This man’s tone wasn’t intentionally rough; it was just stiff because he didn’t beat around the bush, even slightly.

  He muttered a quiet word of thanks to the driver for coming to open the door for him.

  “Not a problem,” the driver said.

  He didn’t mind helping out polite customers. It was the rude ones he told to go to Hell. He’d done that a few times, and Chris had taken the cost of fuel for those trips out of the driver’s paychecks.

  It was worth it eating nothing but canned soup and cheap frozen pizzas for a week to tell those assholes off, the driver thought.

  The elderly man did not let the driver close the door. He did it himself, and that made the driver smirk as he walked back around to get into Starla.

  As he closed the door, he saw Solstice sitting up and turned around, sniffing in general at the old man. She kept her distance, but the driver could tell she was curious about the plant he carried.

  “I don’t mind your animal being in the cab, but please be sure she stays in the front seat. I don’t want her hopping back here,” the man said.

  “Don’t worry. In dog years, she’s about as old as you are. She ain’t doing any hopping. Solstice, lie down,” the driver said.

  She did as she was told and dozed off a few minutes later.

  The driver looked back at the elderly man and asked, “Where am I taking you?”

  The old man handed me a business card.

  “Ralph Timaka?”

  “My home address is on that card. I want you to take me there,” the man said, looking down at his plant.

  “Sure thing,” the driver said, heading out of Citeria and looking for the nearest place he could pop back up through the atmosphere and get on an intergalactic road.

  Finally finding a spot he could head out of, he gunned Starla to get ahead of a few space freighters carrying lumber and hopped onto Intergalactic Road 27, heading back toward Earth.

  The old man lived on the outskirts of Kyoto. The driver didn’t think the old man was Asian, but it wasn’t like one had to be in order to live in that part of the world.

  The driver’s client actually had pretty tan skin and strong hands with some blisters on them. He clearly worked outside.

  “Quite an interesting plant you have there,” the driver said, testing the waters to see if Ralph wanted to talk.

  Ralph’s demeanor immediately changed when the topic of his plant came up.

  “It’s a bonsai tree. Have you not seen one before?”

  “Maybe in an old movie. . . looks kind of small for a tree,” the driver said.

  “Yeah, and your car looks sort of old to have made that maneuver in front of the freighters back there. Looks can be deceiving,” Ralph said.

  The driver’s right eye twitched at the insult to Starla, but the driver had unwittingly insulted the man’s tree.

  “You have a garden you’re going to put it in?”

  “A nursery actually, I’ve been growing these trees all my life. I have lots of a land near Kyoto that I grow these trees on,” Ralph said.

  “Wow. . . so has that been your occupation for your life?”

  “It has. I used to sell these plants all over the galaxy since they could only be grown on Earth. Even if a planet was terraformed to sustain other plants, these trees never seemed to make it. I was quite proud of my trees,” Ralph said.

  The driver wanted a cigarette, but he didn’t want to get Solstice upset and howling again.

  Damn dog, the driver thought, his nicotine craving starting to nag him.

  “Seems like it’d be hard to make a living selling trees,” the driver said, looking back at Ralph in his rearview mirror.

  “Well sure, if you’re a nobody it’s hard. My trees are the finest south of Tokyo. I don’t sell many anymore, though. I mostly teach people how to grow them now,” Ralph said.

  “Did you grow that one?”

  “I did. It’s the first one to be grown on Saturn. It’s a couple years old, and I’ve decided to take it back to Earth to see if it can survive in the homeland of its ancestors,” Ralph said.

  The two continued to talk trees, which surprisingly was more interesting than the driver anticipated. Then again, it wasn’t the trees he found interesting. It was the man who grew them for a living. He was particularly peculiar, and the driver began to like him somewhat.

  He’d grown trees for actors, politicians, and some all around very important people. In the plant world, this guy was pretty famous.

  As they approached Earth, Ralph said, “You sure seem interested in my trees and life. Do you moonlight as a reporter?”

  The driver chuckled and said, “No. M
y hobby is just getting to know intriguing passengers.”

  “Do you write stories about them or something?”

  “No. I just remember them. It’s one of my favorite things about this job,” the driver said.

  “If you say so,” Ralph said.

  “No wedding ring. . . does your girlfriend like you driving all over the galaxy throughout the day?”

  “Sorry to disappoint, but I’m single.”

  “Family?”

  “Orphan.”

  “Damn. I’m zero for two on those depressing subjects,” Ralph said.

  The driver smirked and said, “It’s fine. I don’t regret my situation. Besides, I’m thinking of going to visit a girl pretty soon anyway.”

  “Oh? What’s she like?”

  The driver pulled up to Ralph’s nursery and got out to open the door for him.

  Ralph’s house was an older Japanese style home. It was raised off the ground a little, made mostly of wood, and even had a sliding door entrance.

  His back yard was surrounded by a metal fence and ran up a hill that was full of bonsai trees.

  Ralph paid the driver and actually tipped him.

  “Thanks,” the driver said, leaning into the car and getting his tree for him.

  Ralph took it and said, “You didn’t answer my question about the girl. What’s she like?”

  The driver closed Starla’s door and walked back around to the driver’s seat. Before he got in, he looked at Ralph and said, “She’s a bartender on Europa.”