Theodosia (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
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ds_flashfiction2003-08-25 11:27 pm
theodosia.livejournal.com) wrote in ds_flashfiction2003-08-25 11:27 pm
Entry tags:
Smiling Faces Sometimes
Hey, I'm still working on that Body Switch story I started back here weeks ago. It just occurred to me this morning that I had an excerptable scene that fits the challenge... because who knows more about lying than an undercover guy in the ultimate undercover role, right?
All the setup you need for the story is: much to his surprise Ray woke up in Fraser's bed. Unlike how he'd always pictured it, Fraser isn't there, because he's across town, waking up in Ray's bed... in Ray's body. Hilarity ensues (or so the author hopes) and Ray learns that being Canadian is not as easy as it appears....
Chicago Transit
I had to have the fare card machine explained, okay? To add to my humiliation for the day (and hadn’t it already set a personal record?), I couldn’t work the subway. They changed it since I was a kid: you handed in your change for a token from a surly clerk in the booth. Now there’s a ticket machine, and you have to figure out what Zone you’re in and what Zone you’re going to, and add them together and multiply by five or something… I think.
Anyway, while I’m standing there, trying to make sense of the written instructions, and calculating if Dief would be so kind to woof once for yes and twice for no if I hold up dollar bills, there’s this cute girl, maybe twenty-five or so, who comes up and asks me if I need help.
I’m so relieved I forget to be embarrassed… and let’s face it, how many pretty girls offer to help me? Not many, so when it happens, it’s kind of a red letter day, right?
So even with the whole fare-purchasing being a bust, and actually needing the help, it still gave me the warm fuzzies. I couldn’t help smiling when ‘Jennifer’ insisted that she was going that way, and she’d see that I got off at the right stop, and there was that good buzz when I saw that she smiled back. My day was so definitely looking up even with the body-switching, public transportation, and impersonating a Mountie.
The only glitch came when Dief trotted under the turnstile – a little black woman in a Chicago Transit Authority uniform came out from what was now the “Information Booth” and said, “You can’t take a dog in here!”
“Ah,” I said – it was getting to be second-nature by now. “Dief!” I called “Diefenbaker!” But his back was turned, and as usual he either didn’t hear or else he chose not to – I know which possibility my money is on.
“I’m sorry… he’s partially deaf,” I said. Maybe this wasn’t the time to go into the whole “Dief is a wolf” explanation. I straightened myself up, remembered to doff the Stetson in the presence of a (presumable) lady, and prepared to lie my head off. “He’s a service dog,” I said, channeling Homer J. Simpson speaking posh. “Our equivalent to your K-9 police dogs.”
“He’s a what?” said the woman. “Equivalent to what?”
I’d seen Fraser go through this before, it was like I had a script. “Diefenbaker works for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,” I said. “As you may have inferred from my uniform—” like you’d miss several acres of red serge “–I’m a Constable, and I’m on my way to my job as a liaison with the Chicago Police Department.”
“And I am Marie of Roumania!” snapped the CTA woman.
“No, really,” I said. Lady, it sounds goofy even to me. I remembered my undercover persona and added, “I have official proof, if you would like to see it, ma’am?”
“Yes, I would,” she said, but I could tell the Fraserian charm was working on her already.
It was a good thing I’d located Fraser’s wallet already, I didn’t have to look like more of a red-clad fool digging it out. Fraser doesn’t have a shield like I do, but he does have an official RCMP identity card with a big red maple leaf on it, plus a CPD Liaison card, his Canadian driver’s license and lots more. I could throw cards at her for quite a while if I had to.
“I first came to Chicago on the track of my father’s killers,” I said, while she looked. “And, for reasons that don’t need exploring at this juncture I have remained, attached as liaison to the Canadian Consulate.” Okay, so I have the speech memorized by now, sue me.
Maybe it was the liaison speech, or maybe she figured that nobody in their right (or otherwise) mind would fake up a bunch of RCMP credentials, but the CTA lady gave me back my wallet and grinned up at me. “You take care, Mr. Mountie,” she said.
“Thank you kindly, ma’am,” I said. This was good practice, I told myself. Diefenbaker was waiting for me at the top of the stairs, along with my “native guide,” Jennifer, who had watched the negotiations with avid interest. Somehow, she ended up taking me by the arm as if she needed help down the stairs.
Hey, she’s hitting on me, I thought… and then realized No, it’s Fraser she’s hitting on. That was damn depressing, let me tell you.
I mean… S. Raymond Kowalski is no dog. Okay, skinny, but I coulda done far worse in the looks department, but I never was in Fraser’s league, he’s fighting in a different weight class.
Except… now, I was. I’d been prepared to deal with our friends back at the Consulate, whom Fraser and I knew, and could anticipate their reactions. I knew how Fraser acted when he was with me, but I was missing an important side to it… how he acted when he didn’t have me along to help deflect the attention that inevitably came his way.
Like this chick, Jennifer, who was sitting beside me on the subway bench, looking all expectant, ready for me to say something wonderful that she could hang on like a drowning woman in a sea of boredom. “Have you been in Chicago long?” she said, all dewy-eyed, breaking me out of my reverie.
I tried to make small talk. Fraser’s bat ears were a real liability, I kept overhearing other people’s conversations, plus five different songs playing on the Walkmans. I was zoning out right and left on poor Jennifer.
It bothered me that her attraction was not just to Fraser, but to Fraser’s appearance, which he had no more control over than I did of the way I looked – I mean, except for the grooming thing.
Not that I’m a slob – okay I kinda miss Stella’s input into my wardrobe, but my clothes are clean, I’m clean too – sometimes I take two showers in the same day, if I’ve been working out, or maybe chasing after some bad guys in wildly bizarre ways that gets me covered in garbage, or cocoa powder or glittery sparkles (I was washing sparkles down the bathtub drain for a solid week).
But none of that earned me the same attention that I got from Miss Jennifer here, or from at least half of the female population on the El, nor a certain percent of the male passengers neither.
It was kind of unnerving, was what it was. There are times I’ll grab that spotlight, in an interrogation or at a crime scene – the shield is a great help there. But a lot of the time I depend on blending in, on people’s eyes sliding right over – “skinny guy with the hair, check” – count on it, in fact.
Fraser doesn’t blend. Especially not in the Uniform, but even if I’d been dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, I’d’ve stood out like a big handsome thumb.
What got me is that I knew this, but when I stood there, literally in his boots it was still startling. I had an urge to get up and, well, yell at people, tell them to stop staring, make a scene. Which would be no good at all, since an impolite Mountie would screw up all that famous North American harmony and before you know it, Abrams tanks are rushing across the border on their march to Ottawa.
Now that I look back on it, I feel kind of sorry for Jennifer. If she’d gotten a bona fide Fraser, at least he would have answered her questions. Instead it took all I got to maintain a polite façade. She let me know when it was time for my stop, and I did remember to thank her very kindly indeed, but I could tell she was regretting that she’d taken this much time over a good-looking stiff.
Hey, let it be a lesson to her about pretty faces. Me, I had a Mountie dressed in a detective suit to rescue, and a body-switching gypsy to track down….
All the setup you need for the story is: much to his surprise Ray woke up in Fraser's bed. Unlike how he'd always pictured it, Fraser isn't there, because he's across town, waking up in Ray's bed... in Ray's body. Hilarity ensues (or so the author hopes) and Ray learns that being Canadian is not as easy as it appears....
Chicago Transit
I had to have the fare card machine explained, okay? To add to my humiliation for the day (and hadn’t it already set a personal record?), I couldn’t work the subway. They changed it since I was a kid: you handed in your change for a token from a surly clerk in the booth. Now there’s a ticket machine, and you have to figure out what Zone you’re in and what Zone you’re going to, and add them together and multiply by five or something… I think.
Anyway, while I’m standing there, trying to make sense of the written instructions, and calculating if Dief would be so kind to woof once for yes and twice for no if I hold up dollar bills, there’s this cute girl, maybe twenty-five or so, who comes up and asks me if I need help.
I’m so relieved I forget to be embarrassed… and let’s face it, how many pretty girls offer to help me? Not many, so when it happens, it’s kind of a red letter day, right?
So even with the whole fare-purchasing being a bust, and actually needing the help, it still gave me the warm fuzzies. I couldn’t help smiling when ‘Jennifer’ insisted that she was going that way, and she’d see that I got off at the right stop, and there was that good buzz when I saw that she smiled back. My day was so definitely looking up even with the body-switching, public transportation, and impersonating a Mountie.
The only glitch came when Dief trotted under the turnstile – a little black woman in a Chicago Transit Authority uniform came out from what was now the “Information Booth” and said, “You can’t take a dog in here!”
“Ah,” I said – it was getting to be second-nature by now. “Dief!” I called “Diefenbaker!” But his back was turned, and as usual he either didn’t hear or else he chose not to – I know which possibility my money is on.
“I’m sorry… he’s partially deaf,” I said. Maybe this wasn’t the time to go into the whole “Dief is a wolf” explanation. I straightened myself up, remembered to doff the Stetson in the presence of a (presumable) lady, and prepared to lie my head off. “He’s a service dog,” I said, channeling Homer J. Simpson speaking posh. “Our equivalent to your K-9 police dogs.”
“He’s a what?” said the woman. “Equivalent to what?”
I’d seen Fraser go through this before, it was like I had a script. “Diefenbaker works for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,” I said. “As you may have inferred from my uniform—” like you’d miss several acres of red serge “–I’m a Constable, and I’m on my way to my job as a liaison with the Chicago Police Department.”
“And I am Marie of Roumania!” snapped the CTA woman.
“No, really,” I said. Lady, it sounds goofy even to me. I remembered my undercover persona and added, “I have official proof, if you would like to see it, ma’am?”
“Yes, I would,” she said, but I could tell the Fraserian charm was working on her already.
It was a good thing I’d located Fraser’s wallet already, I didn’t have to look like more of a red-clad fool digging it out. Fraser doesn’t have a shield like I do, but he does have an official RCMP identity card with a big red maple leaf on it, plus a CPD Liaison card, his Canadian driver’s license and lots more. I could throw cards at her for quite a while if I had to.
“I first came to Chicago on the track of my father’s killers,” I said, while she looked. “And, for reasons that don’t need exploring at this juncture I have remained, attached as liaison to the Canadian Consulate.” Okay, so I have the speech memorized by now, sue me.
Maybe it was the liaison speech, or maybe she figured that nobody in their right (or otherwise) mind would fake up a bunch of RCMP credentials, but the CTA lady gave me back my wallet and grinned up at me. “You take care, Mr. Mountie,” she said.
“Thank you kindly, ma’am,” I said. This was good practice, I told myself. Diefenbaker was waiting for me at the top of the stairs, along with my “native guide,” Jennifer, who had watched the negotiations with avid interest. Somehow, she ended up taking me by the arm as if she needed help down the stairs.
Hey, she’s hitting on me, I thought… and then realized No, it’s Fraser she’s hitting on. That was damn depressing, let me tell you.
I mean… S. Raymond Kowalski is no dog. Okay, skinny, but I coulda done far worse in the looks department, but I never was in Fraser’s league, he’s fighting in a different weight class.
Except… now, I was. I’d been prepared to deal with our friends back at the Consulate, whom Fraser and I knew, and could anticipate their reactions. I knew how Fraser acted when he was with me, but I was missing an important side to it… how he acted when he didn’t have me along to help deflect the attention that inevitably came his way.
Like this chick, Jennifer, who was sitting beside me on the subway bench, looking all expectant, ready for me to say something wonderful that she could hang on like a drowning woman in a sea of boredom. “Have you been in Chicago long?” she said, all dewy-eyed, breaking me out of my reverie.
I tried to make small talk. Fraser’s bat ears were a real liability, I kept overhearing other people’s conversations, plus five different songs playing on the Walkmans. I was zoning out right and left on poor Jennifer.
It bothered me that her attraction was not just to Fraser, but to Fraser’s appearance, which he had no more control over than I did of the way I looked – I mean, except for the grooming thing.
Not that I’m a slob – okay I kinda miss Stella’s input into my wardrobe, but my clothes are clean, I’m clean too – sometimes I take two showers in the same day, if I’ve been working out, or maybe chasing after some bad guys in wildly bizarre ways that gets me covered in garbage, or cocoa powder or glittery sparkles (I was washing sparkles down the bathtub drain for a solid week).
But none of that earned me the same attention that I got from Miss Jennifer here, or from at least half of the female population on the El, nor a certain percent of the male passengers neither.
It was kind of unnerving, was what it was. There are times I’ll grab that spotlight, in an interrogation or at a crime scene – the shield is a great help there. But a lot of the time I depend on blending in, on people’s eyes sliding right over – “skinny guy with the hair, check” – count on it, in fact.
Fraser doesn’t blend. Especially not in the Uniform, but even if I’d been dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, I’d’ve stood out like a big handsome thumb.
What got me is that I knew this, but when I stood there, literally in his boots it was still startling. I had an urge to get up and, well, yell at people, tell them to stop staring, make a scene. Which would be no good at all, since an impolite Mountie would screw up all that famous North American harmony and before you know it, Abrams tanks are rushing across the border on their march to Ottawa.
Now that I look back on it, I feel kind of sorry for Jennifer. If she’d gotten a bona fide Fraser, at least he would have answered her questions. Instead it took all I got to maintain a polite façade. She let me know when it was time for my stop, and I did remember to thank her very kindly indeed, but I could tell she was regretting that she’d taken this much time over a good-looking stiff.
Hey, let it be a lesson to her about pretty faces. Me, I had a Mountie dressed in a detective suit to rescue, and a body-switching gypsy to track down….
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This is lovely. :)
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I had an urge to get up and, well, yell at people, tell them to stop staring, make a scene. Which would be no good at all, since an impolite Mountie would screw up all that famous North American harmony and before you know it, Abrams tanks are rushing across the border on their march to Ottawa.
All it takes is one Mountie with an attitude and we start turning the nukes... right Ray. LOL!
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Liz
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I'm all for seeing Fraser trying to pull up his too-loose jeans.:) Wonderful job!
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This was really very fun to read. I'm looking forward to more!
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