Carter's War - 17. Chapter 17

The subway car was uncharacteristically crowded that evening on his way home, and its passengers were pressed together into the close confines of the train like mixed vegetables stuffed into a can. And Will hated it; he regretted again having to leave his Jeep with Jared, but for some strange reason the Jeep refused to go anywhere that morning. The stubborn vehicle had been plaguing him with an annoying yellow engine light on his dash that he had tapped a few times in the vain hope that it would go away. Of course it hadn't, and like any red-blooded Canadian male, he had ignored it until that morning when the car had simply refused to start.

Naturally that hadn't been Will's fault. He had the damn thing serviced every six months, tires rotated, the full works, and all he expected in exchange for this constant pampering was for it to get him to and from work whenever he needed it to. But just like a woman, ignore her problems and sooner or later she would have a breakdown.

Maybe it was time he considered buying a new car. The new Audi looked impressive, and he had heard good things about the Lincoln, but he wasn't ready to settle down with a classy girl and German women were too expensive to keep. If he was lucky, the mechanic would work his magic on the Jeep, coax some more life out of her and he could put off the whole finding a new car for another few months.

So there he was, aching to sit down, facing a dour-looking Russian woman who had claimed the seat he had seen first. Amazing how far a few grey wisps of hair could get you. You had immediate guilt on your side. Guilt for being young and healthy, guilt for being able to walk or run whenever you wanted. Guilt because you knew that eventually you would be there as well, sitting staring up at a younger person in their prime, making them feel just as guilty for their youth.

The circle of guilt.

He grimaced at it as he held onto the metal bar designed to give him stability as the train shuddered and lurched its way along the transit way. He wasn't tired--it was Friday night after all, he was supposed to be out enjoying the night--but he was due for a night on the couch with the lousy excuse for entertainment that passed for Friday night prime time.

He leaned and tried to stare out of the train window, so caked with grime and dried road salt all he got was a distorted view of the darkness and the orange white reflection of street lights on snow. It was depressing: you got up and it was dark when you went to work, then when you finally got done your day it was dark again. The only glimpse of daylight had been through his office window when he had taken a break from the employee appraisals. No wonder people his age were depressed, you went from being completely carefree, to completely careless as soon as you began to work in the real world.

The blur outside suddenly changed to a solid orange blur; they were pulling into Sheppard Station, and Will couldn't help but smile at the thought of the bizarre Marc and the strange lunch they had spent together the day before. And as a majority of the people on the train flooded off to catch other buses he wound up the stairs to catch the next train that would carry him out to Don Mills Station; the train was always less crowded, one could actually sit down and as he did so, he started. He was looking straight into Marc's eyes.

"What...?" he started.

Marc glanced up from the battered book in his lap and smiled as he recognized who was seated across from him, "Hey, small city!"

Will nodded in surprise, speak of the devil; he extended his hand and shook Marc's warmly, "How have you been?"

"I've been warmer," Marc replied, shrugging in his heavy pea jacket that looked perpetually a size too big for him, hanging open on the soft fleece jacket he wore underneath. "Don't you have a Jeep?"

"In the shop," Will replied as he leaned back into his seat. "I'm just heading home after work. There's nothing worse than getting on a train with a group of your employees. I felt like a school teacher on a field trip this evening."

"Yeah," Marc said as he closed his book and tucked it into his backpack and focused his attention on Will. Will noted the book title The letters of Cicero on the cover. There was obviously more to Marc than he had originally thought. But then, the more he got to know the young man, the less answers were forthcoming and the more questions arose.

"Nice glasses by the way," Will said as he pointed to the heavy black glasses the young man wore. He looked so completely different from the spiky-haired skater boy he had been on Tuesday. His hair was scruffy and unkempt, his clothes were muted and relaxed as opposed to baggy and shapeless, and the goatee, Will noted, was a shade of red, telling him that dark brown wasn't Marc's actual hair colour.

Marc smiled as he glanced down, almost shyly, "I had to go to lunch with Libbet and her parents, and then I spent some time at the library down on College Street, the big one."

Will blinked, "That's a block away from my office building, you should have called up, we could have done coffee or something."

Marc smiled, "That would've been cool, I could have used the company."

Will nodded, "I could have used the break as well, how was lunch?"

Marc shook his head, "They're alright, just, I felt awkward there. Playing the good boyfriend so that her dad doesn't say anything." He blinked as he turned his head away, "He's not happy that she's letting me stay with her but he won't come out and say it."

They sat a moment in silence as the train roared further towards Don Mills Station, Will's stop. He glanced through the murky window at the gloomy night. "How far are you going?" he asked as he turned back. "I'm getting off at Don Mills to catch my local bus."

"I'm going home to Kennedy," Marc replied as he played absently with the ring on his pinkie finger. "Not looking forward to it, though; her dad's going to be there."

Will thought a moment, "Well, the Jeep should be fixed by the time I get home, you're welcome to come back and hang at mine, and I'll drive you home after. Gets you out of their way for a bit. Give her a bit of time with her dad."

Marc brightened a bit at the offer, considering it a moment as he gathered up his backpack and began to do up his fleece jacket. Will took that to mean Marc was saying yes to the offer and he reached back to pull the bell cord. Moments later they were both shivering on the platform staring up the entrance to the underground bus station, waiting for the local bus to arrive that would take them the rest of the way to Will's house.

Don Mills' bus level was a cold arctic-like place where red steel rises out of the concrete. It was a testament to man's defiance against the elements. It overstated the Canadian attitude that anywhere was hospitable, and since the weather was minus 20, minus thirty with wind-chill, Will had serious doubts about that. He'd survived worse--the ice storm a few years back where the National Guard had rushed to defend Canada from the elements. But that still didn't change the fact that he was stuck waiting for TTC to send a bus to whisk him the last few miles to his home.

"It's fucking cold!" Will stated the obvious, hugging his bomber jacket closer about him, wishing he had had the foresight to invest in a toque, or a pair of thermal gloves.

Marc's teeth chattered as he adjusted the backpack on his shoulder, a quick turn of his head in the direction the bus heading for Kennedy had gone told Will that he was perhaps regretting his decision. But he affixed a grin to his face and turned to Will, "So how was your day?"

Will shook his head, "Long, the manager overseeing the Tri-Tech acquisition wanted my department to review the staff records and compare it to our own. We are going to have to streamline the operation, remove redundancy and all of that..."

"So you're checking people's files to see who you're going to fire?"

Will nodded, "Essentially, yes; I am going to try to keep as many as I can, find other things for them to do and then transfer them. But we can't afford to keep all of them on. Part of the merger is to cut costs, and staffing is the biggest cost right now."

Marc nodded, "I get that, but couldn't you just retrain them to do something else?"

Will shook his head, "That's expensive, more expensive than hiring someone already trained to do the job. Take a couple of positions I just filled down in IT. Tri-Tech has a systems admin they have employed for five years; now I could have taken that employee and paid for him to be retrained in our systems, and in the end I would have to pay him the same as Tri-Tech paid him for his old job. The two kids I just hired on cost less per year than he would. Two for the price of one, and they would have the same level of experience in our systems."

"Cold," Marc replied with a sigh. "What about company loyalty to its employees?"

"Died sometime in the late eighties, when a dollar became more important than the people that earned it." Will blew on his hands to warm them a little as he stamped his feet, "I don't like it, but it's my job. I have to make sure we produce and at the same time, ensure that we keep our costs down."

Marc shook his head in wonder, "So getting experience isn't necessarily going to guarantee me a job?"

Will sighed, "Yeah, it's a shame, but I'd rather have two kids fresh out of school to a five-year systems administrator. It's the nature of high tech, though." He grinned, "I'd trade a five-year vet for two rookie IT techs any day of the week."

"Because you know they are going to produce," Marc finished for him. "That's harsh, dude. I'm glad I'm unemployed."

Will grinned as he nodded to the bus rumbling through the slush towards them with the correct number in yellow lights, "Soon be home."

Marc smiled thankfully when he fell into the seat next to Will; putting his pack between his legs he glanced out the window, "Man, you live in the middle of nowhere."

Will shook his head, "Nah, not the middle of nowhere, its suburbia." The bus lurched forward as it swept around Shepard Avenue, and Will settled down for the last fifteen minutes of his commute home. "It's alright so long as I don't have to take the bus, but the busses shut down at like ten thirty out here, and only run once an hour. It's not exactly the most convenient of places to get to. When I first moved here, I used to have to hike from Warden just to get home after hours."

Marc shifted in his seat, settling in until his leg pressed up against Will's. He seemed unconcerned with that fact. "So what made you live all the way out here?"

"I live with my roommate, Jared; it's his house, I just rent from him." Will shrugged, "It's cheap and there's none of the hassles of living downtown."

"I like the action though," Marc admitted, as he grinned over at Will. "Nothing beats downtown Scarborough!"

"You sound almost enthusiastic." Will managed a smile as he rang the bell for his stop, "This is us, you eaten yet?"

Marc shook his head, "Not since lunch."

"Pizza?"

"Sounds good."