Chapter 2

Rice earned his niche in his dad’s mind as smart-ass know-it-all due to his relentless pursuit of tangents and side trails. Every question answered spawned three more to be asked, so soon, or very soon in his dad’s case it resulted in an adult non-answer, heralding a breakdown of information transfer.

Once Rice learned to read, (self taught for the most part) he chased down the tangents on his own, learning to read a page within seconds so as not to be caught by surprise by his pathologically rivalrous older brother, who fled into sports to avoid being surpassed intellectually by his kid brother. The only reason Rice’s library books were safe from pillage and destruction was because his dad realized that because Rice was a minor that ultimately he, Rice’s dad was responsible for the replacement costs.

Rice was a tall youth, but not so tall that one instantly thought ‘he should play basketball’. He could run fast, but preferred an easy lope he could keep up as long as he needed that was almost as fast, (less than a minute’s difference over 3/4 of a mile) keeping his full throttle for emergencies. No one saw his usual deceptively efficient lope and instantly thought ‘I bet he would do great at track’

Rice was mainly self-taught, he actually studied and learned for his own interest, instead of because he had to turn in his homework, and he spent a lot of time chasing down tangents, discovering the interconnection of historical figures, how they existed within in the framework of their own societies and the philosophies of their times.

A curiosity about a pothole forming in the asphalt led to investigations into the history of the Roman roads, which led him after a detour to the cobblestone streets of Europe, to Rome. (All roads lead there, hadn’t you heard?)

Also a student of human nature, Rice was well aware of the full spectrum of human behaviors, and was sensitive to the indicative clues. Just as a gorilla’s posturing can warn of violence, Rice could discern the territorial displays of his peers just as easily as Margret Mead noted down the increasing levels of aggressive gorilla behavior.

So, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Rice, paranoid S.O.B. that he was, (and it isn’t properly paranoia if they really are, in fact, out to get you) noticed the chameleon man who managed to always be there, whenever Rice emerged from the foot trail through the various green-way belts or strip-mall back alleys onto the series of dangerous (especially to pedestrians) curving roads with berms blocking any hint of view of oncoming traffic, and if it wasn’t for Rice’s pattern recognition and focused paying of attention that was a practiced facet of his core personality by now, he never would have connected the dots to form a picture of objective reality.

Like a person superficially living their life might so fail, reacting to existence as if a stage actor reading as wrote, a series of scenes to prance within, oblivious of the sound-man’s microphone.

Very few indeed would have sussed out that the various dog walkers, with a stable of various different dogs at various different times, (which times were suspiciously close together, and coincidental to Rice’s presence, ) or the homeless person, although never obviously the same man but to Rice, it obviously was the same man nonetheless. Same age within disguise of makeup, height if allowing for disguise by prosthetic footwear, eye placement and shape of nose, proportion of limb- demeanor.

He never once directly looked at Rice. Every one else in the neighborhood made at least a quick glance at his face, except this guy, which is what made him stand out to Rice. Once he became aware, he tried to lose him, not wanting to drag trouble to his family’s home, such as it was. However, he didn’t know how long it had taken to recognize the constant gnawing presence. thinking back, he guessed it hadn’t been happening yesterday.

As he continued his apparently futile efforts to lose contact with this chameleon man he had just noticed who seemed as if he was a patch of sticky trap stuck to a rat’s tail, Rice took the time to have a logical analysis of his situation.

Item one. This guy has deep backing. Eight different dogs imply a dog handler, disguised vehicles, ect, ect.

Item two, this guy was a stone cold professional, he had a skilled team, invisible support, and it was personal enough for him to put himself as point eyes-on man despite the increased risk-to-mission, leading up to item the third; he had a hard-on (metaphorically speaking, Rice self-editorialized) for Rice! In spite of his professional competency, for some reason it was a personal mission for him.

Up until Rice had that metaphorical ‘light-bulb moment’ (the one about the teams and organizations, not the one about the kind of hard-on sticky had for him) he hadn’t shook the sticky man because he was trying to make breaking away look accidental and hap-stance as was habitual for him. It was Rice’s way of defusing and avoiding stimulating predatory responses.

Still, even with his growing unease of the situation Rice philosophically took it as a learning experience. Dropping all pretense of subtly, Rice bolted through a community center, only the dude who ran out the other end (induced by $20 and a sense of adventure) wasn’t Rice, who slipped the clutches of the large mysterious operation leaving behind much finger-pointing and recriminations.

He’d counted 20 that he saw, and estimated perhaps that many more hadn’t come to his notice, but if so apparently Rice managed to also escape their notice as well. By the expedient of thoroughly wetting his hair and face in a toilet, (Rice had abandoned dignity in favor of survival long since), and joining a small crowd of boys just his age and shivering with towels around their necks and adopting their neck wear style with a damp towel, fished from a dank laundry bin, and crowding for warmth amid chattering teeth and no conversation as they boarded the bus that had just pulled up, and Rice spent the rest of the ride ‘home’ or where ever the bus was going, drying his hair with a damp towel.