Wheels of Steel, Book 1

by Pepper Pace

  She took it back to Jason who grabbed it out of her hand. He nodded his head and powered off the computer. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “One problem and you just walk out?”

  “Well…if I know how to solve the problem I don’t need him, right?” She grinned. If only High School had been like that! “I have a syllabus.” He continued. “I do five problems for homework each night and then email them to him and he lectures on Mondays.”

  “So what do we do now?” She asked as she rolled him out of the class.

  “Anything we want. I have forty-five minutes before my next class.”

  “Good because I have to use the bathroom.”

  While they headed to the ladies room he was greeted by several people that high fived him or asked about a CD. He finally just directed her to the restroom while he talked. She rushed off, close to being at a critical stage. When she returned he was with another guy who was also in a wheelchair. She recognized him from lunch yesterday.

  The guy looked at her and then smiled. “Hi. I see you returned. Most of them don’t,” he joked. Jason shook his head as if the guy was no more than a pesky child.

  “This is Link. He’s one of my DJ partners.” Link reached out and shook her hand. He had short cropped blonde hair, blue eyes and a tan that suggested that he got out every so often. He was handsome and wore an easy smile with a big upper body, though Jason had a big upper body, too. It must be a wheelchair thing.

  “Nice to meet you.” She said, thinking this is something that Jason should have done yesterday. “I’m Robin Mathena.”

  “So this is your first job as an aid?” She nodded wondering how much Jason had told about her; he’d probably described in detail every mistake she’d made.

  “They’re not all as bad as him.” He winked at her and Jason managed to give him the finger. “Look,” he became serious again, turning his attention back to Jason. “I need to make more CD’s. More Love is selling like crazy.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a thick wad of money. He counted out several hundred dollars. “That’s your cut minus the cost for the CD’s.” Jason counted out the bills and pocketed them.

  “How many do you want to make?”

  “About two fifty each.”

  “Fuck! Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying Top, we need to be thinking on a bigger scale.” Robin followed quietly as they wheeled themselves out of the building and to the parking lot.

  “Well fuck that, we’re not burning five hundred CD’s. We need to talk to Amberly and Patty about this.”

  “It’ll cost money if we don’t do it ourselves.”

  “So. It takes money to make money.” They reached a van and Link wheeled around to the back and unlocked it. Inside was a box half filled with CD’s. He went around behind Jason and grabbed the younger man’s book bag and placed about ten of them inside.

  Link suddenly looked at her. “Did you give her one yet?” Jason didn’t answer. “You are one tight Muther Fucker.” Then he smiled sweetly at Robin. This all made her a little uncomfortable; boys cursing and giving each other the fingers. Boy’s just naturally had bad behaviors and she wanted to make sure that Jason understood that she wasn’t going to be treated badly.

  “Here sweetheart. Hope you like it.” Robin accepted the CD. On the cover was an upside down wheelchair over a drawing of a turntable. MORE LOVE was written across the top in fat white block letters.

  “Thank you.” She was very interested in listening to more of what Jason did; especially if it sounded as good as the mix she’d heard earlier. “Just one song?”

  “One song is all you need when it’s eighteen minutes long.” Link responded while filling up his own book bag. “We sale these for ten bucks. Let your friends know. Great for parties.” He sounded like a sales man. He turned his attention back to Jason. “We oughta record that one we did last night. Man that was so sick!”

  “It was pretty sick.” Jason agreed with a reluctant smile.

  “Fuck, it made my balls explode!”

  “Hey, there’s a lady present.” Jason said. She gave him a surprised look.

  “Sorry.” Link said, remembering her. “Alright guys, I’ll see you at lunch. Gotta dash!”

  “Bye.” She said politely. She positioned herself behind him. “So, where to now?”

  They moved to Western Philosophy. And while Jason interacted in the lively discussions, Robin was bored. Her eyes began to droop. She tried every tactic she could to stay awake but two jobs, four hours sleep and coming down from a coffee buzz was more then she could bear and before she knew it she was sound asleep.

  Sensing movement around her Robin quickly came awake. People were getting up and leaving the auditorium. Jason was powering down his laptop. God, she’d messed up big time! She had fallen asleep while she was supposed to watch him! She felt awful. She jumped out of her chair, heart pounding in her chest then she rushed over to unplug the laptop from the wall. She was reaching for it to place it back into the case when she felt his hand on her wrist. When she met his eyes it was to see a cold, angry look.

  “Robin, I don’t really care…” He gulped down a breath voice sounding slurred in his anger. “…what you do when you’re not here. But when you get here I expect you to be rested and drug free-”

  Drugs? “No Jason, I was just-”

  “AND I expect you to take this job seriously enough not to fall asleep!” Some of the people exiting the room turned to look at them and Robin felt two inches high. Her hands began to sweat and shake.

  “Ok.” She said quickly. “I’m sorry.” She murmured. She picked up his laptop and moved it into the case. Then she placed this and his book bag behind his chair. She followed behind his chair and felt that everyone was watching her. She wished that she could hide somewhere but all she could do was to look down at her feet and not meet any of the curious stares. Then she felt the tears of embarrassment stinging her eyes as the floor began to blur.

  Oh god, not this! She spotted a restroom and cleared her throat. “I-I have to use the restroom.” Then she quickly dashed through the doors of the lavatory. It was swarming with girls who were laughing and talking and felt at home here. Robin hurried into an empty stall and once the door was latched she felt the tears fall freely. And then her stomach did the one thing that she hoped would never happen while she was on duty with Jason; it began to cramp in an unmistakable attack of irritable bowel. She couldn’t believe that everything was hitting her at once! She had just embarrassed herself in front of a client AND in front of a college professor and a classroom of college students, and now her bowels were erupting! She never wanted to show her face again. Her body continued to shiver uncontrollably as her attack of nerves continued.

  Robin knew that she was compounding it by being in the stall for so long, but this was something that would not be rushed. And when she was done she was more anxious than ever. She pressed her fingers to her eyes and willed the tears to stop flowing, then she left the stall and splashed her face with cold water. She quickly dried her face and hurried out of the room. Jason watched her without speaking, but she was pretty sure that Pinnacle was going to receive a negative report about her. He turned and wordless wheeled to his business class.

  ***

  Jason felt horrible. He knew that Robin was tired but he didn’t think anymore about it until he turned to her in class and saw that she was not only asleep but leaning on her folded arm and snoring softly. He was going to wake her up then, but Professor Fox didn’t particularly care for him and his ‘disruptive’ nature. That’s what he’d written on his midterm report last year when he’d had him for Introductory. Jason had been so pissed about it that he had faked a seizure the very next day and ended up on the floor flopping around like a fish. It was obviously fake, but there was nothing Fox could do about it.

  And besides, there was only twenty more minute
s left to class and that was long enough for a power nap. Then maybe she’d loose the dark circles around her pretty eyes. Jason didn’t know any woman that didn’t wear a stitch of make-up and still looked pretty. She hadn’t even put on lip gloss, and he was impressed that she’d pulled off her hat and allowed him to see her hat hair.

  After class was over, all he had planned to do was just to tell her not to let it happen again. Besides the look of embarrassment she had on her face when she woke up was a lesson in itself. Yet for some reason he’d started out all wrong and it had sounded like a lecture; like the ones that his father used to give him before he finally packed up and left. And then he saw the tears pop into her eyes and something else; Robin seemed to cave in on herself. If it was possible for a person to become small and insignificant than she had achieved it.

  He hadn’t meant to do that to her. Every time before, she’d give it right back to him and he hadn’t expected her to do anything different this time. Jason was used to putting up angry barriers and fighting dirty when he had to. What he wasn’t used to was causing the same pain that others had caused him. He wasn’t sure what to do in the face of that.

  He felt like shit knowing that she was probably in the restroom crying, and when she came out, her downcast eyes indicated that he had guessed correctly. He had no idea what to say, so he had just gone on to class. She wordlessly set up the equipment. He kept trying to see her eyes but she wouldn’t look at him. And then when she finally sat down she moved her chair behind his…which was actually pretty ingenious.

  After class she gathered up his things. Several students came up to talk to him and two people wanted to buy CD’s. She was already behind his chair when he finished and automatically went right to the cafeteria. He waited for her to get a tray.

  “I’m not hungry.” She said.

  “Are you sure?” She just nodded. He got his lunch, feeling the weight of his actions weighing heavily on his conscience and headed to the table with his friends. It was crowded with more people than usual. They good-naturedly catcalled him and thumped him on the back, all except Amberly and Patty who were both giving him the stink eye. He cursed under his breath and offered them weak smiles. Usually his smiles were killer and he got pretty much what he wanted when he flashed it, but they both just scowled at him. He glanced at Link who shrugged almost imperceptibly.

  Several people made way for his wheelchair and he gestured for Robin to follow. Instead she pulled up a chair and placed it against the wall about six feet from him. He hid his displeasure. He supposed there was no reason for her to have to sit right next to him…but he wished she would.

  “Whassup, Top?” Patty said solemnly. “Heard you and Link had a good show last night.” Patty was tall, big, maybe even fat, with the stereotypical lesbian haircut; shaved short on one side, longer on the other. She was the type of girl that could whup the average man’s ass and most men knew it.

  “Once again, Patty, it wasn’t me and Top it was just me. Top was a guest.” Link was talking as if he’d repeated the same thing twenty different times.

  “I already looked at the YouTube vid.” Amberly spoke. Jason hated when she got mad because her voice was not normally slurred by her CP, until she was upset. Right now she sounded like a drunk. “I heard you mention Wheels of Steel-”

  “Then you heard me mention you and Patty.” Link said.

  “But I didn’t see our cut!” People were catching on that the conversation between them wasn’t as benign as it had first seemed.

  “Let’s not do this here.” Jason appealed to his friends. Amberly turned her frosty eyes on him.

  “You two already did it.”

  Jason’s brow furrowed. How did this day turn so shitty so fast? He slipped his MP3 player from the pocket of his jeans. Nobody made him participate in a conversation that he wasn’t interested in. He turned up Hendrix’s ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER until it was loud enough for everyone at the table to hear and then he quietly ate his lunch.

  ***

  Robin was silent but she watched everything, especially the way the two girls were angry. No…not angry, but hurt. Jason and Link had apparently got busted cutting them out. Eventually, the one they called Amberly stood up and left. The other girl stayed and just basically glared at Link who seemed to be trying his best to ignore her while trying to keep the attention of the people crowding around the table. Finally even she got tired of his showboating and got up to leave.

  Jason finished his lunch, ignoring everybody and then he silently wheeled out of the room with her following close behind him. He went about the rest of his day in a quiet funk and she wasn’t much different. Dark circles had begun to deepen beneath her eyes and she was as tired as she had ever been in her life, yet she didn’t dare fall asleep; she didn’t even so much as yawn.

  At the car she robotically loaded his chair into the trunk and then slipped into the driver’s seat trying to clear her head of the sleep haze that engulfed it. She saw Jason put his hand on the dashboard and lean forward. She thought it was strange; maybe he couldn’t get his legs in a comfortable position. But then she saw that his teeth were clenched and his eyes squeezed shut. Suddenly his body lurched back and then forward.

  Alarmed she saw that he was in danger of slamming his face into the dashboard. Whatever fatigue had been in her body instantly disappeared as she leaped towards him and quickly shoved him back against the seat. Her heart was suddenly in her throat as she used her strength to keep his seizing body from thrashing forward.

  His body suddenly stretched and he grunted repeatedly as his fingers and feet began to tap. She didn’t have to hold him down now that his body was so taut, but she placed her hand flat on his chest just to make sure he didn’t lurch forward again. His breath suddenly stopped and slowly his face began to turn red and then purple.

  Robin began to sweat nervously as she watched his breathless body straining. Was he choking? Maybe he had swallowed his tongue. That’s what people said could happen. What did you do when someone swallowed their tongue?!

  “Jason?!” He was turning blue. She put her hand on his neck. The tendons there stood out; bulging , his body like a board. She was on the verge of dragging him out of the car and performing CPR on him, when suddenly he collapsed and his body fell back into the seat. She could hear his rapid intake of breath and she exhaled in relief.

  “God…” She said mostly to herself. Her heart was still pumping, practically slamming out of her chest. He’d scared her so bad that not only was she no longer sleepy, she didn’t think she’d sleep for a week! She closed her eyes and tried to calm down and then she felt his hand on top of hers where it still rested on his chest. Robin’s eyes popped open and Jason was watching her with a tired expression.

  “I’m sorry.” He said plainly.

  “What?” She had heard him clearly, she just wasn’t sure why he was apologizing.

  “I’m sorry that I made you cry. I didn’t mean it.” She moved back away from him, sitting back in her own seat, stiffly.

  “I-well…it won’t happen again.” She said in a clipped tone. She glanced at him without meeting his eyes. “Put your seatbelt on please.” Then she started the engine and drove off.

  The ride to Jason’s apartment was uncomfortably quiet. For once he didn’t put on his headphones and seemed to just listen to whatever played from the car’s C.D. player. She saw him looking at her periodically, but he didn’t say anything.

  When she pulled up into a parking space Jason finally spoke as she opened her door.

  “I need to leave my leg braces in your trunk.”

  “Why?” She frowned.

  He opened his door and positioned his legs out of the car. “Because my Mom is coming tomorrow and she’ll find them.” With a curious frown on her face, Robin went to the trunk and retrieved the wheel chair and unfolded it close to where Jason now stood.