Something I Could Hold Onto

"Damn," Frankie hissed at his dead cell phone as a plume of smoke hit him square in the face.

It was a cold October day in north Jersey, with billowing gray clouds rolling gracefully across the colorless sky. The boy shivered, backing away from the hood of his car and pulling his sweatshirt tighter around him. The thin cotton of his hoody did little to block out the brisk winds, however, adding to his already sour mood.

With more force than necessary, Frank flipped the switch on his hazard lights. Won't do much good, he thought darkly, I haven't seen a car since I got off the interstate. He sighed and shut his eyes, focusing instead on what awaited him in New York. His twentieth birthday was in two days, and in an attempt to keep him away from home his mother had bought him tickets to a local show. The Smiths were playing a small venue on Halloween, the same day that he had inked on his knuckles. He figured it would be a bittersweet evening -- Frank loved going to gigs, but the reality that faced him once he returned to Belleville would no doubt be lingering in the back of his mind.

Another sigh escaped his chapped lips as he dug around the glove compartment. Out came empty CD cases, napkins, old ticket stubs, and a pack of cigarettes. Where is it? he wondered silently, shifting his position to peer under the driver's seat. After a few moments of incoherent cursing and blindly fumbling around, he protruded several papers from the depths of his backseat; a repair guide now laid menacingly in his hands, as if daring him to open up and read.

With one last breath of stale air, Frank opened the car door once again. He stepped out hesitantly, hating how the wind bit and nipped at his already frozen hands. With a disheartening familiarity, he unlatched the hood of his Nissan and coughed as fumes tunneled down his throat. Slowly, he began turning the pages of the never-used manual, stopping whenever a picture or headline caught his eye. He learned how to change the oil, fix a broken gas cap, and secure bikes to his car racks, but no information was listed on how to stop his engine from expelling smoke.

Fuck this, he thought, turning to the car door again with every intention of sleeping in the backseat. As if on cue, however, headlights blinded him the second he faced down the road. As his sight adjusted to the brightness, he made out the shape of a black Honda swerving to the shoulder gently, coming to a stop behind the Nissan. Frank squinted again, defining the features of the man who stepped out. Black hair hung loosely around his shoulders, greasy but not disgusting. It contrasted starkly with the alabaster tint of his skin, which blended almost seamlessly into the pale backdrop of the sky. His face was feminine, yet unmistakably masculine, an odd arrangement of delicate features and a strong jaw. His clothes were simple -- a plain white shirt matched with a black hoody and black jeans. The only source of color this man possessed were his eyes, a glorious mixture of gold, green, brown, and yellow. In a sense, his appearance was as bleak as the situation had felt five minutes before.

"Do you need some help?" he asked warmly, his voice light and musical.

Damn, Frank thought again.