Chapter 3: I'm tired.

Alex eyed the Dallas policeman in his rearview mirror as the cop walked up to the car window. He had some scruff on his chin, which always made Alex a little jealous; the only facial hair he could grow were tiny red hairs on the tip of his chin. The cop was pretty hefty-looking. He had a bit of a beer belly on him, but those meaty arms looked like they could definitely do some damage. This was clearly not a man one would want to mess with; unfortunately, Alex tended to unintentionally mess with people quite often. The cop knocked on the window. Alex rolled it down and looked up.

“Hi, sir. Howya doin?” he asked.

“Fine,” the cop replied indifferently. “License and registration, please.”

“Denise, if you would be so kind as to open the glove box, that’d be dandy.” Denise complied, and Alex grabbed the items. He handed them through the window to the looming cop. The cop examined them.

“Hmm…you realize why I’ve pulled you over, I assume,” he said.

“I glanced at the cop, trying to read what was underneath the unintelligent-looking exterior,” Alex self-narrated. “His tone of voice was forgiving enough. I knew if I played my cards right I might be able to weasel my way out of a ticket.” And then, “Yes sir, I ran over the curb. I’m sorry, I’m just in a big rush and made a mistake. It won’t happen again.” It was then that Alex noticed the officer’s nametag: Ericson. “As I looked at his nametag I found the name very fitting for this man. This guy looked like he could be some kind of Viking; kind of bulky and dumb-looking.”

The cop stared at Alex blankly.

“Excuse me?” he asked.

A little slower than last time, Alex repeated himself. “I said, it won’t happen again.” And then in self narration: “I realized this cop must be as dumb as he looked.” The cop continued to stare at Alex a moment longer, then glanced back at the license in his hand.

“Alex Cook, eh?” he asked.

“Yes sir, Alex Cook.”

The officer looked back at Alex in a strange way.

“Alright, I’ll let you go with a warning this time,” he said, and took one last glance at Alex. He then walked away without another word, and Alex watched him climb back into his police cruiser.

“It was a strange occurrence. I felt as if that cop had known something I didn’t. Although, I highly doubted that could be true, and decided to move on. I put my car into drive, and pulled onto the road.”

The next few hours on the long drive to DC went smoothly.

“Denise, find me the nearest Taco Bell, please,” he said at around seven as his stomach grumbled.

“Calculating route, Alex. Please take the next exit,” Denise replied.

“You’re the best, Denise. You always know how to take care of me.”

“You told me to find the Taco Bell, Alex. I was simply following orders.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “Denise…can’t you just go along with- never mind. I just want some delicious tacos.”

Ten minutes later, the pulled up to the restaurant and squeezed into a spot next to some crappy-looking red mustang. Alex opened the glass door at the entrance and walked up to the counter to order his food.

“I walked up to the counter, where a largely obese woman stood. I ordered my usual and waited for the large woman to ask for my money.” The woman behind the cash register looked at Alex.

“I ain’t psychic, mister,” she said. “You better tell me your usual before my largely obese self kicks your skinny white butt outta here,” she told Alex in a tone dripping with attitude. The lady didn’t have many facial expressions; it appeared to Alex as if she hadn’t set foot outside of that Taco Bell for at least…thirty years or so.

“Right,” he started. “I’ll have one bean burrito, two tacos, and a small drink.” He had been trained growing up to only get small drinks at restaurants. His father always lectured his kids about how you can get just as much to drink with a small for a lower price than a large; it was free refills, after all. The rotund woman’s eyes shifted ever so slightly away from Alex as she shouted to someone in the back.

“Monica! You got that?”

“Yeah, I got it! You don’t need to be yellin’ in here with customers at the counter!” a voice unseen to Alex replied. The large lady’s eyes moved back to him.

“Four dollars, five cent,” she said.

Cents, Alex wanted to correct. For once, however, he held himself back. He felt he had very little wiggle room with this woman, and he needed his Taco Bell. He certainly did not want his skinny white butt kicked out before he got his food.

“I handed her the money, biting my tongue about her annoying grammar mistake,” he said. He looked at the obese lady’s face, and saw a very unamused look upon it. She grabbed the money from Alex’s outstretched hand and put it in the register without breaking eye contact. He smiled boyishly at her. She rolled her eyes and began waddling away.

“Crazy white boy comin’ in here trying to tell me how to talk,” she muttered under her breath, as she disappeared into the back. Alex reached over the counter and cautiously grabbed the small cup the portly woman had failed to hand to him. He walked to the drink fountain and filled his cup to the brim with Dr. Pepper. Then he turned around to find a place to sit. It was not a difficult task; there were only two other people there. One was a short blonde lady who sat reading a book as she ate her nachos. The other was a man of about forty who had a fluffy gray mustache. Just before Alex began contemplating his jealousy for that mustache, the man stood up, threw his trash away, and left. Alex sat a few seats away from where mustache man had been sitting and sipped on his drink. A few moments later bad grammar woman returned.

“Forty-three,” she said in that attitude-filled tone and returned to the back before verifying that someone heard her. Alex walked to the front and grabbed the tray filled with his dinner. He grabbed some fire sauce from a bucket on the way back to his chair. After sitting down and smothering his meal with the fire sauce, he ate it. After sitting for about ten minutes enjoying the satisfaction Taco Bell gave him, he stood up. He hiked his pants up a little and grabbed his drink. He refilled it, then dumped his tray into a big trash can which read “Thank You.” He left the Taco Bell and walked to his van, where he immediately spotted a large ding on its door. He sighed, frustrated. The crappy red mustang was gone, and the ding was speckled with red paint.

“I looked around for any sign of the culprit, but had no luck. I supposed it was time for a good night’s rest; my adventure was only beginning. I needed all the rest I could get for whatever difficult tasks lay ahead of me.” Alex cringed once as he looked at the ding again, and then climbed into the van. “Denise,” he said, “take me to the nearest Holiday Inn. I’d prefer it to be an Express. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.” Denise began calculating the route for a Holiday Inn. “You really are always there for me, Denise.”

“But Alex-“

“No, no, Denise. No need to reply. Just take me to the hotel.” And so Denise did. As he pulled into the parking lot, Alex yawned and rubbed his tired eyes.

“It’s been an exhausting day of driving, wouldn’t you say?” he asked Denise.

“I suppose so, Alex,” she replied. “Would you like me to prepare a route for tomorrow?”

“Just stick to DC. We should be able to make it by tomorrow night if we drive all day.” Alex climbed out the van and walked around back to grab some clothes for the next day. He got what he needed, and groggily walked across the parking lot and into the hotel lobby to check in.

His grogginess was perhaps the reason he didn’t notice a crappy red mustang sitting a few rows away from his own vehicle. In that crappy red mustang sat a man with a bushy gray mustache.

I couldn't remember what you wanted us to do to post the chapters so I'm deciding to not really care. Also, I'm too tired to read through this so if there are any swill mistakes I'll fix em later. There ya go uggo...DONE my chapter.