Get Your Kicks On Route 66

Get Your Kicks On Route 66 (Open)

This story is set in 1965, a time when Route 66 was already in decline, defeated by the great super highways. It was time for ome last trip West on Route 66.

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There was nothing like cruising along Route 66, thought Jack, as the wind blew past his red convertible whipping his blond hair. His friends Jon and Laura were making out in the back, but he thought them fools. They were missing the sights and sounds of the famous American highway!

He pulled into the parking lot of an shiny dinner, just as the Beach Boys were done sing about California girls. The dinner looked like a rounded metal bread box, which was wonderful. It was nothing like the stuffy Bostonian society restaurants and country clubs, which Jack had grown up with. A hodge podge of old and new cars doted the parking lot. From inside, he could hear the sounds of Elvis Presley's Blue Suade Shoes.

"Come up for air guys! It's time for food." His friends ignore him, and continued to crawl all over each other. Jon's hand was up Laura's blouse now. "So, I see you two are planning on ending up spending the night in jail? Well that will save some money for the trip."

Jon was a hulking football linebacker with a brown crew cut and a nose that been broken more than once. Laura was a curvy blond with a love of short skirts, cheerleading and doing the football team. Recently though, she had started going steady with Jon.

Jack hopped out of the car. He was a tall, lanky man of eighteen summers, with a long, straight nose, wavy blond hair and twinkling blue eyes. He wore a white buttoned up shirt with a red letterman jacket and tight blue jeans.

OOC: I have no definite plans for this, but I want a real story with a early sixties feel and an actual plot. PM before joining.

Carl had been watching Nadine for six month, ever since she started at the dinner. She was a petite little red head with green eyes and a ready smile. His wife, Trudy, was an ugly, old bitch, who nagged hik night and day. His days working with Nadine made up for that. The only problem was, she was not cooperating.

Carl had tried to keep her after hours, or schedule her to work the late shift, alone with him, but it never worked. What was wrong with the girl? He just wanted to protect her, and maybe show her how he felt about her. Carl hitched his pants up under his stomach and snuffed his cigarette out on the burger grill. Bitch! She was pretty now, but she would probably turn out just like his old lady, another small town gal who treated her man like shit.

He looked out the order window to see a young man walk in. Immediately, Carl did not like him. He recognized the Letterman jacket. Damned Central High shits! They won every one of their games, but they were cheats, and stuck up city kids.

The stench of fried food and stale coffee clung to nineteen-year-old Jolene Ellis. Carrying a tray loaded with french fries, burgers, and malts, she made her way across the diner to a booth in the back corner. A group of boys she had graduated with sat there, one or two of them wolf-whistled as she approached and Jolene had to fight down the urge to drop the malts in their laps.

"Hey, Jolene, why don't you sit down right here and join us for a bite." Troy, the oldest of them, and the one with the worst reputation, said as he patted his lap.

"Yea, we promise we won't leave any marks on that pretty skin." Evan, the slick womanizer, laughed.

Jolene simply turned and walked away, but not before Troy grabbed a handful of her ass as she passed him.

About to turn back around and give him a piece of her mind, Mary Beth, a fellow waitress, put a reassuring hand on her arm.

"Don't let 'em get to ya, honey." She said. "They's just a bunch of idiots who don't know their cock head from their brain."

Returning to the counter, Jolene started getting a fresh batch of coffee ready. The bell above the door jingled merrily as it opened and a young man walked in. Neatly dressed in his jeans and letterman jacket with his hair slicked in the latest style, Jolene could only guess he was a city kid. But he sure was a handsome one. Without releasing what she was doing, Jolene started to run a hand over her apron and dress, smoothing out invisible wrinkles before straightening her curly auburn hair in its ponytail.

Jack knew his friends would be along, but he was hungry. As he came through the door he caught sight of a pretty auburn headed waitress. She looked cute in her polyester dress, and not all all the sort which his parents would approve of. They expected him to marry well, since his choice would reflect on the family, but they might see such a girl as a fling. There had been a few flings, but he still had university ahead of him, and marriage was a distant thought.

He approached her with a smile. "Hey there, mind if I sit at the counter?" The booths were pretty well filled up. Just as he asked this, Jon came through the door with Laura on his arm. They looked embarrassed.

A surly looking cook stared out at them and frowned. he was smoking a Lucky Strike and muttering to himself. It was enough to make Jack want to avoid the burgers.

Jolene had never been a self-conscious person. She knew that she wasn't a beauty queen. Her nose was just slightly angular, her curls were often frizzy and out of control, her body on the curvy side, and she was as tall as most of the men she knew; but Jolene had never felt uncomfortable with her appearance.

Until right then.

He approached her with a smile. "Hey there, mind if I sit at the counter?"

"It's a free country, sit wherever ya want." She said, trying not to get flustered as her eyes - a mix of gray and blue that her mom liked to call her "steel gaze" - met his own brilliant blue gaze.

"Hey, Jolene, need a refill here!" Max, one of the diner's regulars, called from his seat at the end of the counter.

Grabbing for the pot of fresh brewed coffee, Jolene's hand slipped and the pot went crashing to the floor, the glass shattering and the coffee flying all over Jolene's pale pink uniform.

Embarrassed beyond measure, Jolene's skin flushed as red as Mary Beth's nail polish - a shade the older woman called Whore's Wine. The laughing that came from Troy's booth echoed around the diner and, afraid to even look at the boy sitting at the counter, Jolene ran into the kitchen and out the back door.

Nadine watched as Carl turned red. "You tell that bitch to get her skinny ass back in here, or she's fired! No, wait! You better cover her tables. I'll tell the bitch she's fired when she gets back." Nadine sighed. She felt bad for Jolene, but realized there was nothing for it, but to get back to work. The older Mary Beth motioned for her to go. "I got this honey." She was already using a dust pan to collect broken glass.

Nadine turned toward the three new customers, but realized that the boy in the letterman jacket was already gone.

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Jack felt horrible. He had not done anything to cause the girl to drop the coffee pot, that he knew of, but he hear her boss screaming about losing her job. Somehow he still felt responsible. He also knew that Laura would have something that the girl could wear, to go home, in her suitcase.

"Laura, can you load her an outfit?" Laura gave him a smile, from within her boyfriend's arms.

"Sure thing Jackie. Go save the girl Prince Charming."

Jack turned and ran out the door, and around the edge of the parking lot, looking for the waitress. It was bad enough that she lost her job, and that she had been laughed at by the assholes back there, but she did not deserve to go home looking like that.

In back of the dinner, he found a dumpster and a bit of woods. "Hey miss, you back here somewhere?"

Jolene leaned up against her 1955 Ford pick-up. The red paint had faded into a dull rusted color and the interior was falling apart, but it was still Jolene's baby, bought with every little bit of money she could save up for the past four years.

"Shit," she muttered as she grabbed a box of Lucky Strikes from the passenger seat. She fumbled to get a match lit as the cigarette dangled between her lips.

What had just happened in there? This wasn't at all like her. She didn't get flustered by men. If anything they were a waste of time. Just look at Carl, he was a prime example of what good-for-nothings men were.

She could just imagine that he was inside right now, cursing up a storm and threatening to fire her ass. But he was all talk. Carl couldn't afford to fire his own niece, not if he didn't want his wife nagging him more than she already did. Plus, Jolene had some dirt on her dear uncle, dirt involving Nadine and Carl's obsession with the girl.

Finally getting her cigarette lit, Jolene took a long, calming drag. She wasn't a huge smoker, but every so often it was good to calm the nerves.

"Hey, miss, you back here somewhere?" The voice came from the other side of the dumpster.

"Damn it," Jolene cursed as an ash from her cigarette landed on the back of her hand. From around the dumpster stepped the boy with the letterman jacket. Jolene threw her half-smoked cigarette on the ground and folded her arms across her chest.

"Can I help ya with somethin'?"

Jack suddenly felt in over his head. She looked less upset and more pissed. He could not blame her, he supposed. Suddenly, he was not sure he wanted to deliver the news. Being a football player took courage though, and what was the worst that could happen, beside her finding a handgun from inside her truck, and shooting him.

"Look, I just thought you should know, before you go back in, that the fry cook guy says he's going to fire you. I know that it is hard to hear, but I thought this way you would have some warning."

He also mentioned the offer of clothing, but something about her demeanor, kept him shut up.

OOC: I am sorry if it is short, but I was unsure of what else to say.

"Look, I just thought you should know, before you go back in, that the fry cook guy says he's going to fire you. I know that it is hard to hear, but I thought this way you would have some warning." He seemed so concerned that Jolene regretted snapping at him.

"It's fine, Carl ain't gonna fire me. He can't fire his own niece." Jolene reassured him. She ran a hand through her hair, sighing heavily. "And sorry if I snapped at you. Didn't mean to. Just a bit frustrated."

"I'm Jolene by the way." Tapping another Lucky Strike from the cigarette carton, Jolene held it out to the boy. "Want one? I've been tryin' to quit, but sometimes it helps soothe the nerves."

Jack grinned. "Coach says it'll cut our wind, but I'm addicted too". He took the offered cigarette and light it with a silver lighter. "I always Jon and Laura for the smell and so fair my old man buys it." He leaned back against the truck.

"So, is he your favorite uncle? If so, I don't want to meet the others."

Jolene leaned back against her truck and took a long drag of her Lucky Strike before laughing at Jack's question.

"No, Carl's not my favorite uncle. I can barely stand the man. Only reason he gave me this job was 'cause my aunt wouldn't stop naggin' him."

Blowing out a puff of smoke, Jolene leaned closer to Jack. "Between you and me, if I didn't know he wants to get into Nadine's pants, she's the read head, he would have fired me long ago."

She threw the butt of her cigarette on the ground. "So what brings you out this way?"

kick the habit

Jack took a long drag on his cigarette. "It's Spring Break and me and my friends wanted to take a trip, before I have to start working for my old man this summer. After that, we'll be at different colleges. This is our last fling."

He looked over at Jolene. She was pretty, even in her stained outfit. "To bad you can't ditch this and come with us. We're headed down to see the Grand Canyon. We've got just enough time to head down there, see it, and get back before school starts again." He did not know her, or her situation, but he was sure she would not be working for that ass-hole if she did not really need the money. His father owned a car dealership, so money had never really been an issue for him, but he was expected to know the family business and to major in business management in college.

Jack took another long drag. It was going to be hard hiding his smoking from his father, while working as a junior sales associate. Maybe it was time to kick the habit... kick it on Route 66. He gave an inward groan at his own bad joke.

"To bad you can't ditch this and come with us."

His words rang in Jolene's head. What was really holding her here? A dead end job waiting tables, being harassed by the local meat heads, and being ordered about by an uncle that would rather she didn't exist? Why the hell would she stick around for all of that?

Jack was offering her an adventure, a chance to get away. True the trip would only last a week, but who was to say that Jolene had to come back when Jack and his friends did. She could stay out there, find a job somewhere else, finally be free of this stupid little town and it's stupid people.

The question was, did Jolene have the guts to do it? Did she have the balls it would take to finally leave? The answer was simple.

"What the hell," she said, "I'll go with ya. Just give me ten minutes to pack up some stuff and I'm ready to go." She stepped close to Jack, their bodies only inches apart. "What do ya say, Jack, think you can handle me tagging along on your adventure?"