by Sam Clemens
Convent
Sam Clemens
Copyright © 2020 Sam Clemens & Associates
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
SamClemens.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination, with the exception of Caribou Ranch, which has unfortunately yet unsurprisingly been purchased by wealthy investors and is now inaccessible by car. Nederland is still well worth the drive. Tell them Sam sent you.
Also by Sam Clemens
Content Series
Content
Condor
Nonfiction
Memoirs of a Gas Station: A Delightfully Awkward Journey Across the Alaskan Tundra
Contents
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Part II
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Part III
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Epilogue
About the Author
Like This Book?
Part One
One
Something funky was going on at the sub shop.
Cosmo Hendricks came in all the time. Two or three lunches a week, four if he was in the mood. Buffalo chicken on white, swap ranch for bleu cheese, medium—this was the standby. On payday he’d upgrade to a large.
But twice in a row now he’d been given the upgrade without asking, or having to pay. Monday they had rung up a medium size but handed him a large, and Cosmo figured it was a simple mistake; the employees didn’t mention it, and he certainly wasn’t going to point it out. He plowed through the sub like a post-winter grizzly and forgot the incident. However, on Wednesday, it happened again. Cosmo walked into Copper Mine Subs for his second weekly visit and ordered a medium buffalo chicken with the normal modifications.
“Medium buffalo chicken,” the guy at the register repeated. “Seven fifty-four.”
Cosmo paid and waited. A woman behind the counter put the sub together and handed it to the register guy, who gave it to Cosmo.
“Medium buffalo chicken,” he said again, slapping the sandwich in Cosmo’s open hand. It was, unmistakably, a large.
Cosmo looked at it. “Thanks,” he said.
“Cookie?” the guy asked. He placed a cellophane-wrapped chocolate chunk monstrosity on the counter and walked away.
Cosmo Hendricks examined the treat. “Hey,” he said, leaning over the counter. “Hey, thanks.”
The employee looked up at him. “No problem,” he said, and turned his back.
Cosmo ate his sub and cookie and walked across the street. Before entering his place of work, he reaffixed his name tag to his vest.
The unexplained upgrades weighed on him. Once could be a mistake, but twice was a trend. And the cookie, that was intentional. He grasped for an explanation for the unprompted gifts. Definitely not a tip—Cosmo Hendricks never tipped at Copper Mine or any counter-serve shop; you walked to the register and they took your order, and he failed to see room for gratuity in this arrangement. Not to say he wouldn’t tip in the future; free shit was clearly tip worthy. It was one of the most clear-cut cases he could remember. So Cosmo would tip the fine folks at Copper Mine Subs in the future, but he hadn’t tipped them in the past, so tipping in no way helped explain the curious development.
He didn’t know the employees personally, other than the basic familiarity of a guy who goes to the same lunch place three times a week. He hadn’t donated to anyone’s charity. Maybe it was as simple as the fact that he was a regular, and at some establishments, regulars were rewarded.
But Laird was a regular, too, and he’d never gotten shit.
“It happened again,” Cosmo told Laird inside REI.
Laird looked up at him. He was standing in front of a clothing rack, organizing Patagonia vests by size. “What happened?” he said.
“Copper Mine gave me a large instead of a medium.”
Laird stopped what he was doing. “How high are those guys these days?”
“The normal amount. Hey, but this time they gave me a cookie, too.”
“The fuck?” Laird squinted his eyes. “Cosmo, you got an admirer at our local sub shop?”
“Don’t think so. It was a guy who rang me up.”
Laird shrugged. “Still.”
Visually, Laird was unassuming; short, sturdy, with neat blonde hair and eyes that seemed locked in the half-squint of an oncoming laugh. Cosmo was the opposite; six-foot-three, with a dark mop and those big round eyes with rings around the bottoms. At work, the men were usually together.
“I’m just saying, there’s an opportunity here,” Laird said.
Cosmo approached the next clothing rack—raincoats and outer shells—and went to work organizing. “I’ll stick with women, thank you.”
“Free food is free food. Not saying you have to lead anyone on, but if a man’s making eyes at me, I’ll let him think what he wants if it means a sub upgrade.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Professors would agree,” Laird said, “but I’m what they call ‘nontraditionally smart.’” He mechanically swapped smalls for larges, mediums for XLs, like he’d done—they’d both done—thousands of times before. “Street smart, you know? When there’s an advantage to take, the advantage needs to be taken, and you sir need to take advantage.”
Taylor appeared. “Take advantage of what?” he said.
Cosmo and Laird looked at him.
“Nothing,” Cosmo said. “We’re just talking about lunch.”
Taylor Holliday was one of roughly 7,000 men in Boulder who wore a ponytail. He grew up on the north side of town, attended the University of Colorado, and now managed the REI and fell deeply in love with a new outdoor activity every two years. The current passion was rock climbing, though the mountain biking flame still flickered. He spent his entire nonworking life in the elements.
“Let’s get those faced,” he said to Cosmo and Laird, pointing at the clothing racks, “and then I need you guys to help me organize the back. We got a new North Face shipment in.”
“We’ll get right on it,” Laird said, and watched him walk away. Laird turned over a price tag. “Dude,” he said, “three hundred for a windbreaker. Who buys this shit?”
Cosmo Hendricks shook his head. He was thinking about the sandwich.
Two
Thursday was Cosmo Hendricks’s day off. He spent most of it watching cooking shows in his apartment, a studio across the street fr
om campus in which everything was slightly crooked. It was humble but so was he, so everything was fine.
At one, Laird called.
“Dude,” Laird said in a whisper, clearly while on the clock. “I went to Copper Mine.”
“And?” Cosmo said. He pictured his friend, hiding from Taylor and crouching behind some product display in the middle of the store. It was par for the course.
“Nothing. I ordered exactly what you do, and it came normal. I think it was even the same dude at the register—big guy with a buzz cut?”
“That’s him,” Cosmo said, slouching low on the couch. He scratched his inner thigh. “Well, I regret to inform you that you’re not a preferred customer.”
“Something’s fucked here,” Laird whispered. “You’re no more handsome than me. You’re taller, that’s it. There’s no reason I shouldn’t turn that dude’s crank just as much as you.”
“I don’t think that’s—”
“Crap, gotta go,” Laird said, and Cosmo heard him begin to articulate an excuse before the line went dead.
Cosmo Hendricks grew up in Indiana, which was not as bad as everyone seemed to think. He went to Butler because they let him in, and majored in finance, and probably would’ve spent his entire life in the geographical area if he’d been able to find a job upon graduation. But the economic dip hit Indy hard, and whatever meager financial industry the city offered folded up like a card table when the markets dropped. Cosmo’s plan was to wait it out; move back in with his parents and work odd jobs until things rebounded. And that’s exactly what he’d been doing when Laird knocked on his door, three years before the sandwich shop situation. Well, his parent’s door.
“I have a plan,” Laird had said, breathless from one of his excitable moods. “Pack your stuff. You and me are headed west.”
Cosmo rubbed his eyes. Since high school, Laird had averaged about one plan a month. Most of them burned bright for a few days before he lost interest. Some—a public access dance show, a company that made velcro pants—he actually attempted before they failed miserably. Cosmo couldn’t remember one that had actually panned out. He smiled and addressed his friend. “Good morning,” he said.
“Morning? It’s damn near afternoon. And look at you.” Laird motioned to Cosmo’s pajama pants. “Dressed like a child in the middle of the day while life passes you by.”
“I’m job searching. You know this.”
Laird waved his hands in frustration. “Stop with the jobs. Adventure. That’s what I’m talking about. It’s time the two of us stop waiting.” He squared himself to Cosmo and extended his hands. “Hear me out: Boulder.”
“Boulder?”
“Boulder. Colorado. How long we gonna hang around this shit hole? We go west to somewhere vibrant.”
Cosmo nodded. His friend was rolling, and he’d learned to let him. “Why Colorado?”
“Have you seen Boulder?” Laird said. “Austin’s played out, California’s underwater, Oregon rains too much. Phoenix is a billion degrees. I’m telling you, buddy, Boulder is the ticket.”
Cosmo Hendricks considered it. He asked Laird what his plan would be for when they got there. Hypothetically.
Laird flailed his arms wildly. “Stop it with the plans! Our whole life is plans. No—it’s time for adventure.” He pointed to the ground. “You and I load up the van and head west like Lois and Clark! It’s settled.”
“Lewis,” Cosmo said.
“Laird. And Cosmo. Headed off to find the new frontier.” Laird spread his arms to the sky in a grandiose fashion.
“It’s also the old frontier.”
“You will not argue semantics with me the whole way,” Laird said, “understand?”
Cosmo shook his head. “I never said yes, man.”
“Also,” Laird said, “you’re driving. I’ve hit a snag with my license.”
For reasons that were basic and arbitrary, this scheme actually took, and Cosmo eventually agreed to head west with Laird. What was he going to do around Indy, anyway? Sit around and look for jobs that didn’t exist, forever? Live in his parents’ basement like a damned caricature of adult male failure? No. He would do something, even if that something involved driving across the country to an unknown city with another single, unemployed man who was a bit of a wild card. Maybe a wild card is what he needed. Finance was boring.
Two weeks later they loaded up Laird’s minivan and drove nineteen hours through Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas. Cosmo was, indeed, at the wheel the entire time. Laird blamed the “asshats at the DMV” for his situation, but Cosmo knew he had a penchant for ignoring speeding tickets.
Boulder was essentially a Bob Ross painting. Green in the summer despite the dry climate, with flowers and foliage in just the right places. The Flatirons lined the horizon—the town’s signature feature. On their first night, Cosmo and Laird walked along the creek to Pearl Street Mall and sampled the delights of the little hamlet’s weird and vibrant nightlife. They drank beer and shouted over music and causally made eyes at passing women for hours.
On the unsteady jaunt back to their hotel, Cosmo turned to Laird.
“You were right,” he said, wobbling on boozy legs. “I needed a change. I don’t know what I’m going to do with a finance degree but I’ll…figure it out. We’ll figure it out. This place kicks ass.”
“Didn’t I tell you not to doubt me?” Laird smiled. His eyes were hardly open. “Did I not tell you?”
They got jobs at the Boulder REI to tide them over until they found something better. That had been three years ago.
Cosmo stood in the camping section and helped a nice wrinkled woman choose between inflatable sleeping pads.
“Honestly, you can get away with the uninsulated,” he said. “Unless you’re going to like—Canada? Where it’s real cold?—you’re gonna be fine. The sleeping bag’s what matters. Either of these,” he said, motioning to a red pad and a tan one, “is going to get you off the ground.”
The woman thanked him and went off with the cheaper uninsulated pad.
Taylor appeared. “You pushing the insulated?” he asked.
“I’m being honest,” Cosmo said.
“Well you honestly know the insulated pads are better,” Taylor said, running a hand through his hair, “so I hope you’re pushing them.”
“She’s going camping at KOAs, dude. She doesn’t need the extra oomph. Not for that price.”
Taylor sighed. “I wish you’d direct them toward the better product.”
Taylor was a purist. His angle wasn’t one of capitalistic greed; he honestly just wanted everyone to have the best gear. He loved the outdoors and he cherished quality goods. It was what made him a good manager.
At noon, Cosmo Hendricks walked into the back room and found Laird organizing bike helmets. “Hey,” he said, “let’s go get lunch.”
Laird set a blue helmet down on its cardboard box. “At the same time? You trying to get us fired?”
“Taylor won’t care. It’ll be quick. I want to see what happens if there’s two of us.”
They walked into the sub shop tentatively, the way people do when they have an agenda. The place was empty like usual. Laird made his way across the green and white tile and approached the cashier first. Same guy. “Medium frontier, no pickles,” he said.
“Chips or a drink with that?” the guy asked. He glanced past Laird, to Cosmo.
“Nope, just that.” Laird paid the man. He walked to the other end of the line to wait for the sandwich, and watched Cosmo out of the corner of his eye.
“Hi,” Cosmo said once at the register.
“Hi,” the man said. His face was emotionless.
“Um, medium buffalo chicken, sub ranch for bleu cheese, please.”
The man punched it in. “Anything else?”
“Nope, that’ll do it.” Cosmo forced a smile.
Wordlessly, he stood with Laird and waited for the sandwich.
The first one came—Laird’s. Both men stood on their tipt
oes and looked on as the woman wrapped it in paper and put a single piece of tape on it. It was a medium.
The tension mounted as they awaited Cosmo’s sub. Laird leaned on the glass to catch a glimpse of the cut of the bread before it reached the end. Cosmo crowded the receiving station to see for himself. Wrap, tape, and the sub was presented.
Also a medium.
“Have a nice day,” the woman said to Cosmo, holding eye contact before turning her back.
“They were spooked,” Laird said. The men sat in the REI back room and passed cardboard boxes between them. A shipment of raincoats had come in.
“Maybe,” Cosmo said, “or maybe it was just a mistake.”
Laird reached up and grabbed a box from the top of a tall stack. “Nope,” he said. “Definitely not. Not twice. Not twice in a row.”
“Maybe they find me charming. Maybe it’s just that simple. And they felt weird about giving me an upgrade when you were there. Didn’t want you to be jealous, you know?”
“Unlikely, but possible.” Laird wiped his brow. “No matter, though; now we have our control to the experiment. Tomorrow, we send you in solo again.”
