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Heading Home
by Queen of Cups
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I am an evil criminal mastermind who has kidnapped Joss
and his buddies and forced them to sign over their copyright
privileges. Honest. Or not.
Distribution: List archives, Blurred Vision, others on request.
Feedback: Will be gratefully received.
Summary: Lindsey goes home... Again.
Heading Home
The road was straight and flat and boring. There was no other
traffic, and nothing interesting to look at anywhere. The radio
offered evangelism or pop for the last 150 miles and Lindsey's was in
no mood for either. Sometimes owning a classic vehicle had its
downside. Like no CD player. Not even a tape deck. Nothing. Just
the radio or his own thoughts. Not much of a choice.
Interstate driving had always left Lindsey with a strong desire to
run off the road just to ease the boredom and this time was no
exception. He comforted himself with the knowledge that there wasn't
much farther to go.
//So, where're you going, Lindsey? Back to your roots?"
"Something like that."//
He'd said it without thinking. He'd had no real plans at the time,
save for getting the hell out of Dodge before his bosses caught up
with him, but once he'd hit the road and began to think, the idea of
getting back to where he had come from became more and more
attractive. Small towns - not rural, just ordinary little places
with four-figure populations. Places where the head cheerleader
still married the star quarterback before producing a child whose
birth date could be counted back to precisely the date of the Senior
Prom. Picket fences and screen doors and saying "Howdy" to the
neighbours. Towns where people spelled 'standards' with a
capital 's'.
Travelling from town to town, he kept himself busy. Hell, he even
managed a couple of quaint, old-fashioned dates. Nice girls who
allowed a movie (no touching) coffee (he paid) and a discreet kiss
goodnight on the front porch (no tongues).
He was distracted enough that it took until Solomon Springs (pop.
6700) for the memory to surface. It was while he was booking into
the boarding house. The owner was a woman who looked as though she
had stepped straight from a cookie commercial. From her soft white
hair caught in a bun, to her neat floral dress, she was like a little
kid's picture of Grandma. It was when she smiled that he began to
remember. There was something calculating in her gaze, like she was
weighing him, making sure he was fit be in her place. Something in
those mirthless eyes told him that she would be utterly ruthless to
anyone who didn't quite measure up.
He had been in about the third grade. His new buddy Steve had
invited him home for dinner. He hadn't asked his folks, as kids that
age tend not to, he just took Lindsey home and stood him on the porch
while he cleared it with his Mom.
Young Lindsey had stood obediently outside in his dusty sneakers,
waiting for his friend to invite him in, when he heard a woman's
voice through the window.
"You brought a McDonald to my house? After everything I told you?
Well young man, you can just go tell that trash that he isn't
welcome in a respectable home."
It was a mile and a half to his house from there, and the school bus
was long gone. On the long, lonely walk home, the woman's voice
echoed around his head.
It was the memory of this incident that had pushed Lindsey through
school and then through college. It didn't really leave him until
somewhere in the middle of Law School. The shame and the anger that
he felt on that long, hot walk home stayed fresh and painful all that
time.
Small towns were full of kids like him. Outcast kids. The ones that
nobody wanted around in case the neighbours saw them. He remembered
standing in lines at grocery stores and in the parking lot after
church, casually eavesdropping as people's lives were ripped open and
picked over by morticians in Sunday best. Nothing was too personal,
too private, too embarrassing to be a topic for throwaway gossip.
Some things never change.
Getting back to where he came from taught Lindsey an important
lesson. He had done the right thing by moving on.
Lindsey was going home now - back where he belonged. He allowed
himself a slight smile as he passed the sign that told him he had
just entered California and was on the right route back to LA.
Roots? You could keep them.
~end
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