One Stop Before (PT 3)

I highly recommend reading the first two parts of this series before reading on. You’ll thank me later.

One Stop Before

One Stop Before (PT 2)

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Good ideas rarely come from someone navigating the blistering cold without a coat, who is suffering from a frozen face, half frozen appendages and a broken spirit.

Paul left the detective’s office with his tail between his legs and no thoughts on what path he should go down next. The road ahead was as cold as his face. The police were no help. He filed his report, gave his statements and nothing. The private investigator he hired was no help and the detective he was referred to by the police left him feeling duped.

The thought of a train ride back to the Garden State was abysmal, at best. Returning home without answers after trekking back into the city on his day off without reasonable winter attire was probably the most dreadful things he could think of. Minus the strange encounter with the Orange Jacket Cult.

He continued to trek through the city, battling wind tunnel after wind tunnel naturally created by the sturdy steel structures erected long ago. The jacket with mysterious origins whipped his side as he tightly clenched the top half of it holding onto the only piece of evidence he had proving he was there in the church that day.

One would think throwing the jacket away is the most logical thing to do. Not for Paul. He needed answers. To solve to riddle before tossing its centerpiece away. With the jacket, he had a chance to find them. He had a chance at an answer. He needed to know why this jacket made its way into his life and to find a way to take back every ounce of memory drained from his brain at the church.

If detective What’s His Name isn’t going to help, Paul wanted to figure this out on his own. Without any help, with few leads, ways to figure out how to find a woman who he hasn’t seen in weeks, Paul was walking into this blinded by his ambition and the blistering wind.

By the time Paul arrived at top of the steps leading down to the pedestrian concourse, he came up with a plan to solve this thing and return the coat he wanted so little to do with. He looks down at the coat, mesmerized by its vibrancy and briefly comforted by the plushness under his freezing hand.

The train screeched into the station, vibrating the concrete underneath his feet. The vacuum of hot air mustered by the passing train whipped up the scents of the homeless that sought shelter there in the winter and a place to beg for cash in the summer. He was standing in the way of the leisure-seeking travelers attempting to escape the bitter cold and hot smelling concrete dungeon to get to their temporary destination – a bar, play or a quick, overpriced place to eat on a Saturday afternoon.

Processing the inception of his plan, he continued to stand there, funneling them all to the left of the staircase like cattle. Their judgmental gazes fixated on his jacket and his shivering state. Steam coming from their eyes and the top of their hatted heads. He dared not look directly at them as his heart rate slowly increased to match the rate in which his teeth were chattering. The sound of their judgement drowned out the train as it took off for its next destination and when it was all over, the dead quiet of the city on a weekend snapped him out of his catatonic state.

Deep exhale, relaxed shoulders and a cold hand resting on the top of the orange poof. Tapping it a few times with his fingertips, he knew where he needed to end up first. He turned around and headed toward the old church, something he knew he should’ve done sooner but was reluctant to do. The last time he was there, he left with an unwanted gift and a minor case of amnesia. He was going to barge in there and demand an answer. Beyond his forced entry, he had nothing. No idea what to say or who to ask for, but he knew returning to the scene of the “crime” was most likely more than what the authorities did following his voluntary cooperation.

The cold forced him to put on the giant, orange cloud if he was going to walk back to the place where this misunderstanding started.

To be continued…