maverick

syd: shit

syd: alright, i take all of that back. good luck saving the business in peace

syd: eh they talk shit to me and about me all the time, i'll manage

syd: my mom's gonna be there too and im really not in the mood

wes: word

syd: seriously?

syd: just cut the bullshit man theres gonna be so many people at that thing nobody will care if ur not there

syd: sure as hell wont care if im not there

wes: man there was some white walking asshole peeking in my window the other day. scared the shit outta half my regulars. let me save my business in peace

“You’re a gentleman and a scholar,” Jasper said, unfurling his bills and plucking out a handful of ten dollar bills. “Thanks man.” He’d make some of it back when later when he sold a couple joints from his stash to Ben. Dealing drugs was the one thing that Jasper had never figured out how to do but if the reporter wanted to assume that of every delinquent looking twenty year old in Wheeler, Jasper wouldn’t stop him. Anything to turn a profit, at the end of the day.

Jasper let himself look around the place, eyes adjusting to the ambient lighting. “You got plans tonight, man?” He asked, trying to figure out where he was gonna go from here. His night was a wash now that his client had cancelled and Wheeler was slowly turning into a place that didn’t seem safe to lurk about at night. “Aside from not getting murdered, obviously?” he added with a laugh, morbidity had always been a stable in his humor.

“Does it look like I have plans?” Wes said with a chuckle, pulling out what Jasper had purchased and tossing it on the counter, tucking the rest back in it’s secure hiding spot before resuming his post leaning against the counter. “I was gonna go home, drink by myself while watching Game of Thrones for the third time, maybe send a few texts or pass out, whichever comes first. Livin’ the dream, y’know? Why, you trying to slide through?”

Standing there in the road, staring at her piece of shit car, with fucking weed dealer Wes from the arcade who probably didn’t actually know shit about cars, half of her wanted to laugh, and half of her wanted to cry. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d changed the oil. She didn’t have time for that. She shook her head, and bit her lip, trying to sound like she knew what she was talking about and not to let it show  that all she wanted to do was sit down in the road and cry. “I, um.. Like, to a shop, take it in?” She said, and actually laughed, although her voice was a bit shaky. “Um.. I don’t.. I don’t, really..”

“Well,” Wes said with a chuckle, haphazardly shrugging. “There’s your problem, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, except that you could like, shoot your engine to shit. Same thing with some of the arcade games. You gotta clean ‘em out every once in a while or they get pissed. Don’t suppose you’ve got any spare oil in your trunk, huh? Otherwise, we’re gonna have to take a field trip.”

He eased a bit seeing the children focus more on the flashlights then the face that had appeared in the window. What did they want? The thought hit him so hard he would have said it aloud if not for the distracted group of small, scared children locked in there with them. He nodded at his suggestion. “Good, yeah… stick hands. Let’s give them those and try to keep it together. I’ll keep trying.” He hit redial quickly, but was greeting again by the annoying cadence of the busy signal. 

“Busy,” he muttered, careful hide the panic in his voice. “It had been busy this whole time, I don’t know.” He hit redial again and stared helplessly at Wes who he saw was trying to keep it together. He looked just like a boy, just a frightened little boy. “We’ll figure it out,” he said hanging up for the ninth time and pressing redial harder this time as if that would help get a connection through. “We’ll figure this out together, I promise. Now go get those sticky hands.” 

“Sticky hands are a go,” Wes said, reaching over the counter and grabbing a handful, careful not to jostle enough to expose the precious cargo hidden underneath. The last thing he needed was the damn Pastor to know what else was going on in the arcade. He quickly passed them out, gave a couple nods to the few parents that were on distraction duty along with him, then headed back to Jude. “Listen, I was thinking, are we sure we even saw anything? Maybe it was like..a branch. Or a plastic bag? I just can’t imagine why they’d come here. It’s not like Cassie spent a lot of time here, you know? Why me? Why us?”

“I can’t imagine being born and bred here,” Andie said simply. It felt a world away from growing up in California. In a way, it was. Wheeler was everything that Carmel-by-the-Sea was not. Conservative. Small. Judgmental. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to stay, but then again, there she was. Andie sighed, tilting her head back and looking up at the stars. It was a nice summer night out, all things considered. “I’m sure you could build a little entourage somewhere else,” Andie said, smiling a little as she looked over at him. “You’re charming like that or whatever,” She teased. 

“It certainly was an experience,” Wes chuckled, thinking of his own upbringing. It wasn’t exactly the normal Wheeler situation, as evidenced by the constant shunning, but he had squandered the most incredible opportunity to get out nearly free of charge, so what did he know about it? Wheeler 4evr was his game. Sure, it was full of bullshitters spewing bullshit, but it was home. “Charming, huh? That’s a new one. Is that what they call smartasses around your parts?”

Mads arched a brow, a challenging glint in her eyes yet the satisfied smile stayed settled on her lips. She laughed then as he deflected, watching the look on his face when he finally let himself look at her. She wasn’t so proud to think her affect was so strong on people that they couldn’t keep away from her. She didn’t even care if that was the case, but she knew Wes. Knew him better than herself, which could mean a lot of things. But still, she laughed, rolling her eyes playfully. “If we’re gonna call ‘em white walkers, do I get to kill the night king or whatever?” Truth be told, she wasn’t the type. But still, she nodded at his response. “Oh yeah, someone’s gonna give you a run for your money, you know?” She teased, tugging him down to her level for a quick, teasing kiss. Let that hold him over till next time.

“If you killed the night king, would that mean you’d start exploring west and get the fuck outta here?” Wes quipped back with a smirk. It wasn’t often that he made Game of Thrones references, but deep down, Wes was a big fat nerd, and that’s just the way it was. Of all people, it wasn’t so bad that Mads was the one to know. He let her kiss him, giving her a quick wink before falling back onto the bed and droning his sarcastic grovel. “Thank you for doing me a big, big favor, Mads. I will remember it forever and ever, and I will speak highly of you at your lame vigil. Deal?”

It was a dim and gloomy night in the quiet town of Wheeler. A good night to hang out, chill and try to forget about all of the shit that was going on in their once reserved town. Wes was an old friend of Seena’s. They went back farther than she could remember. Many wild nights they spent together back in college. Even before college. He was one person who had watched Seena going through many ups and downs. Through rehab, and withdrawals. To being on a downward spiral after her mother’s death. Getting her life together finally for the first time and graduating top of her class in college. The person who she could thank for that was Bill.

“ Of course. “ Seena said as she vigorously against the mat that graced the entrance to Wes’s apartment. She was only going to take them off after entering the quaint place. “ Nah man, I’m cool. I mean I’ll take some pop or water if you got it though. “ Seena spoke as she plopped down on the nearby couch, flipping off her shoes. “ So that blackout. “ Seena started in a hesitant voice. “ Did you like see any crazy shit too? “ She asked unsure if everyone else besides herself and Faith had seen something odd that day.

“Yeah, yeah,” Wes said, pulling the fridge door open and rummaging past expired leftovers and strewn beer bottles to get to the dwindling stash of coke (that was almost exclusively used to mix with Jack Daniels), grabbing a beer bottle for himself before heading to Seena, hand with coke outstretched. “I saw some weird shit. That Darby kid came by earlier to ask about it, actually. We didn’t see much. Scared the fuck outta the kids that were there, though. I was so busy doing damage control I didn’t really think about how fucked up everything was. What happened to you?”

The boy dealing at the counter waved at him, and the entitled way he asked for the reporter only garnered a confused look from Ben. No, he wasn’t going to walk all the way there for some punk and he decided to answer the boy’s question all the way from where he stood.

“Yeah?” Ben remarked, sounding as if he was interested. “I can hook you up with my colleague if you like,” he offered. Mads was shit at proper photography, but every teenager to early twenty-something could easily shoot with their phone, that the selfie-proficient junior reporter can manage an arcade.

Wes let out an easy chuckle, arms crossing over his chest when he was met with resistance. If Ben wanted a standoff, a show was what he was going to get. Hell, it would at least show the few parents in here with their kids that Fun Spot cared about the safety of their children and all that. “That’s not exactly what I meant, but thanks. What kind of shots have you been getting? Maybe you want to think about checking with a manager before snapping anything? We got kids here, dude. You get signed release forms from parents for all of this? Because I certainly don’t remember approving any of it.”

syd: im not going to that thing

syd: i even told my brother no so you can stop trying to convince me

syd: you can come over for a drink after though

syd: as long as you promise not to talk about the vigil

wes: damn dude

“a face in the window? that was it? they didn’t try to come in? they didn’t say or do anything? they just peeked in and left?” darby had a hard time believing that and his face conveyed as much as his hands, still holding the pen and notepad lowered, just like his hope in the multitude of witnesses through wheeler.

crying kids…maybe they saw something wes hadn’t that triggered their emotions so intensely. or maybe not. maybe they were just a bunch of scared kids reacting to a faceless figure in a window. son of a bitch. “do you have the names of these kids or any of their parents? what about surveillance footage from that night?”

Wes shrugged his shoulders, knowing what it sounded like. “Listen, I don’t fuckin’ know. They were there, and then lightening flashed, and they were gone again. I had to calm down a bunch of fuckin’ kids so that they could come back to my business without fearing for their damn lives, so I didn’t see much after that.” 

He rubbed the hair on the back of his head, searching his memory. “You could check with the Millers, maybe? Their kid saw it straight on. But, uh,” Wes pondered for a moment, wondering if he wanted to share the next information, since the truth was that he’d turned the security cameras off when his side business picked up to avoid incriminating himself. “My security cameras have been down for like, a year or two. That’s privileged information, alright? Don’t need someone hearing that they’d be free and clear if they decided to break in.”

Andie shrugged and put her left hand into her pocket, leaving her bruising right to carefully dangle at her side. “Ask the right person, and I have a really good reputation,” She corrected him. The women of Wheeler were the ones who met her with contempt usually. She didn’t blame them. After all, she had their husbands and sons eating out the palm of her hand in the dead of night when they should’ve been stowed away in their externally perfect homes. It wasn’t her fault. What the Women of Wheeler never considered was the simple fact that their men came to her, never the other way around. She was simply doing her job.

“Hey, I hear that,” Wes said with a chuckle as he unlocked the car with the button on his keyring, a few paces still to go. To the degenerates of Wheeler, he was a God of sorts. Not that he’d call himself that, or anything. But sometimes he figured the way people felt about him was how the Church drones felt about the Pastor. Maybe he’d start giving sermons on the enlightenment of drug use or some shit. “Wheeler’s the worst, but also the best. All depends on who you know. Why d’you think I never left?”

@wesfun​

Date: July 2019 (days after the blackout) Location: The Fun Spot Arcade

Was it considered grace that most of the town’s younger residents found it all too easy to bounce back from the strange event that occurred during the blackout? Such was the fickleness of youth and Ben tried to remember the last time he had allowed himself to be so carefree. 

But he wasn’t there to reminisce, nor was he there to enjoy what limited entertainment the place had to offer; Ben was there to take photographs, capture evidence of whatever remnants of the storm and attack there was available. Armed with his camera, a digital for this event, the reporter started taking pictures when he accidentally caught in his lens a transaction happening just behind the counter.

“Huh,” was all Ben could say as he realized the Jasper may not have the monopoly on the marijuana trade in Wheeler, after all.

Ever since the blackout and whatever the fuck he’d seen in the window, Wes had taken it upon himself to do mainly daytime shifts, leaving his usual closing to pretty much anyone else. Sure, there were far more kids to deal with, and there was way less privacy when it came to business, but it was better than the risk of seeing some wack shit again. It would do for now. He’d seen the reporter snapping pictures, but he hadn’t realized they were of him until it was too late.

“Hey,” he called out, shooing the nobody he’d been doing business with to wave Ben over. Wes was smarter than smashing a camera, but he knew he’d have to diffuse the situation before the Montgomery name got an even worse rep. “Mind showing me what you’ve got today? I could use some new promo shots, if you’re open to that.”

Andie pulled herself up and grinned at Wes. “I walked,” She admitted, though these days she’d been met with opposition when she told people she liked to walk from destination to destination despite having a car of her own. Walking cleared her head and allowed her to de-role from the character she embodied at the Ice House. Even she had to admit to herself she no longer felt entirely safe since the Klein kid’s disappearance and the death at the carnival. Every bump in the night alarmed her, causing her to glance over her shoulder. A ride from Wes would very much be welcomed. “Would a certain Montgomery boy ruin my reputation if I’m seen with him?” Andie asked playfully. She was already fully and solely responsible for the negativity surrounding her own reputation.  

“Probably,” Wes answered with a smile, completely okay with the role he played in Wheeler’s narrative. The Montgomerys were slimy, new money, low class, non-religious trash, and that’s just how Wes liked it. The way he saw it, he was smarter than 99% of the town anyway (with that 1% being Mads, maybe), and could only tolerate about 3%. The more people who wrote him off the better. It made his life easier. He nodded his head towards the back lot his car was parked in, starting their short journey there. “Can your reputation get much worse, though? I think the only thing worse than a Montgomery is an Ice House employee.”

“yeah, exactly,” darby nodded, grabbing a notepad and pen from his belt. looking up, darby locked eyes with wes, offering a polite yet sympathetic smile. “if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. trust me, i’d understand. but it could potentially really help our investigation into, well, everything.” darby pressed his lips together as he took note of the look in wes’ eyes. hopefully it would encourage him to open up and reveal as much about that night as possible. on the other hand, darby wasn’t entirely sure how much even he would want to discuss what happened that night. it seemed everyone had tales of varying degrees of violence.

“I mean, I’ll talk about it,” Wes said with a shrug, gaze fixed on a spot a little past Darby’s shoulder as he tried to gather his thoughts. Ever since that evening, he hadn’t spent much time sober. He alternated from smoking to drinking, whatever got the white face out of his mind. He scheduled himself opening shifts so he wouldn’t have to be at the arcade alone at night for a while. Was he scared? Truly, he wasn’t sure. He was doing his best not to be anything at all. “Honestly though, dude, I don’t fuckin’ know what I saw. It was just a face in my window, then it was gone. The Pastor was there. So were a bunch of fuckin’ kids. Crying kids. Is any of this helpful?”

Jude reached for the cellphone he always kept in the breast pocket of his jacket. He flipped it open and quickly punched in the numbers 9-1-1. The tinny sound of a busy signal sang out from the other end. He directed the children to follow Wes. “It’s ok, kiddos,” he said reassuringly patting one on the shoulder. “It’s ok, it’s just a bit of lightning and probably some rambunctious teenagers playing a nasty joke.” This seemed to alleviate some of the tension that was building. A solution that could be explained away easily, though Jude knew this was no joke. He redialed, then again. He moved the phone away slightly to meet Wes’ eyes and mouthed the words can’t get through to him as the children lined up to help with the flashlights. 

“Yeah, I did stuff like this when I was a teenager too,” Wes said, not quite believably. The worst he did as a teen was get drunk enough to throw up in the well of the basketball game where all the balls came tumbling down for kids to take shots at the moving hoop. It was gross, but it wasn’t scary. Plus, Wes was the one who had to clean it up the next day. That was maybe a little scary. But teenage foolery didn’t come close to whatever was going on now. He passed the flashlights out in a daze, trying to keep himself calm enough to keep everyone else calm. All he could think about was how much he could use a smoke break, but how much worse he would be handling this if he was high. 

Seeing the Pastor’s lips dropped his stomach. Not that he was usually one for police activity, but who the fuck was going to save them from all this? Flashlights all handed out, he moved to Jude and spoke in a low voice. “Listen, I got dumb sticky hands to keep them entertained for days if we need it, but what do you mean you can’t get through? You think this is a town-wide blackout? Do blackouts affect phones? I thought-- I don’t fuckin’ know what I thought, honestly.”