this is a story that may go somewhere, someday

The problem he was facing made his head hurt somewhere between his left eye and the base of his skull. It wasn’t just complicated and frustrating, it was getting cats to square dance. He didn’t say it couldn’t be done but he wasn’t about to channel his inner politician and promise it would happen. This effort would require money, patience, a prostitute with a heart of gold, an attorney with poor judgment and a good cook. He had a few bucks in his wallet, a library card, coffee buzz and an old jeep he had just beat up with an aluminum baseball bat. It wasn’t looking good.
That morning he had taken a reheated cup of coffee from his kitchen to drink while the Jeep warmed. Late fall frost had turned the Cherokee windows gray in the pre-dawn light. The warm cup had melted a circle on the roof of the car in the time it took to fish the keys from the pocket of his worn jeans and unlock the “beast from the City of Soul-Sucking Darkness”. Beast had been his favorite vehicle ever, dependable, strong and with a kickass stereo that was the only place left that he could play his collection of cassette tapes.
The combination of cold moist air and no winds had allowed the frost to grow crystal patterns that as they flowed and grew appeared to be the size of dinner plate dahlias on the windows of Beast. The engine moaned three times as he turned the ignition and then caught, first rough and then smoothing to a smoker’s purr. He turned the defroster on just as the November sun was changing the elemental base of the frost from diamond and steel to topaz and gold. He turned toward the window and watched as the flat crystals of frost softened. Channels began to open and flow across the window as solar fusion and internal combustion conspired to vaporize this microns thick icepack. The world outside was revealed as frost slid downward on lubrication made of its own mass recently converted from solid to liquid.
It was going to be an unseasonable, warm day with clean air and plenty of promise for enjoyment. Except for having to meet with a former co-worker for lunch, the day would be his. As he started to back out of the drive he felt a bump and heard a crunch that made his teeth hurt.