Rush hour comes to a depressing end as the sun sets on Chicago’s South Side. Maude shoves the squeegee under their arm as they count only a handful of bills, a measly fifteen dollars after hours of standing restless at the intersection. It seems the payout only declines day by day, commuters less and less willing to be swayed by their puppy dog eyes.
By seventeen Maude has lost almost all their baby fat, unearthing a jaw and cheekbone combination that betrays their youth for something more mature, even if they don’t really feel it yet.
It’s certainly not good for the squeegee business - at least the more polite side of the job. They’ve seen the older guys around town bumrush cars, cleaning and demanding pay from the nine-to-fiver who stopped at the wrong intersection at the wrong time. That’s not really Maude’s style; especially not the part where they get run over afterwards.
“Weak payday?” Chirps a voice, startling Maude out of their frustrated stupor.
Approaching with their hands in their pockets is a girl who seems about Maude’s age. She oozes style, from her ripped jeans covered in painted-on skulls and roses to the distressed, baggy t-shirt featuring a giant middle finger. Her hair is styled into thick spikes, the greasy gel glistening like a smooth stone, not a single strand hanging loose. It’s the very height of punk.
She waves a handful of one dollar bills. “Me too. These bougie bitches can’t spare a fiver while they roll right through our city and back to their white-picket fences. I started spitting on their windshields to see if that could convince ‘em, but it hasn’t worked so far. Bet they drive off just to go to a carwash anyways. Fuckers.”
The girl - no, the woman. She holds herself with too much maturity to be demeaned with girl - throws her arm around Maude with unprompted familiarity. But Maude doesn’t shirk away.
There should be a better term than love at first sight, Maude thinks. Because it isn’t exactly love that they’re feeling. No, it’s more like… devotion. From the second this streetwise punk opened her mouth, the only thing racing through Maude’s mind is: you; I’ll follow you anywhere.
“What’s your name, anyways?” She asks. Maude realizes they’ve yet to speak; stunned into an awed silence. How embarrassing.
“Maude,” they say with their voice a quiet monotone. Shy.
“Oh? Tu parle Français?”
Maude blinks, unable to comprehend the foreign language. If that was a foreign language. Maybe it was some sort of code. “Uh…”
“Hah! Sorry. I asked if you speak French. You know Maude is a French name? Mine is too. Elodie. Like Melody, without the M and an I E instead of a Y. Here, let me write it down so you don’t forget it.”
She grabs for Maude’s hand, then reaches into the backpack slumped over her shoulder to pull out a black marker. Elodie scrawls her name onto their palm, then passes Maude the marker and offers her own hand in return.
The black ink feels like a brand, an oath and a prophecy all tied into one. Their names are both French. That’s fate, right? It has to be. How else could it be explained that someone as breathtaking as Elodie took to someone like Maude so easily? Maybe they knew each other in a past life. They must have. Maude feels it in their very soul. This isn’t the start of anything, it’s the continuation of something they didn’t know they had. That’s what the burning in their chest means. Destiny.
“Spelling is important, you know. When we mark up the city with our tags we gotta get it right so they all know who runs this place,” Elodie says, bristling with confidence and an aspirational twinkle in her eye.
“We run it?”
“Of course. I don’t see a king of Chicago anywhere, do you? That means there’s a crown for the taking, and who better than a couple of squeegee punks like us?” Elodie gestures broadly to the dilapidated neighborhood around them. Homeless people sitting on the curb with cardboard signs begging for money and food, bankrupt businesses covered in graffiti and boarded-up windows, burned-out streetlamps no one has bothered to fix in years. It's Chicago. It's beautiful. “I bet you know these streets better than any politician who refuses to even walk down them. God forbid they get dirt on their fancy little shoes.”
Maude nods. She’s right. The street rats know the South Side better than any mayor or councilor could ever dream. These are their streets.
“As much as I’m enjoying standing at this intersection, if we wait ‘til it gets any darker out people are gonna get the wrong idea about us. Let’s go and have some real fun.”
Elodie grabs Maude’s hand - the one not stained by black marker - and pulls off down the street. They’re sprinting like they have something to outrun, the sky turning dark purple above them as night reigns over Chicago. The few living streetlamps barely lighting their way as they weave through the sidewalk traffic - the folks leaving for grueling nightshifts or their first round of drinks at the bar.
Maude forgets all about the foster home’s curfew.
The two teens end up at a parking garage. The kind with a dingy “24HR SECURITY” sign out front, but where everyone knows the cameras haven’t worked in decades.
They hop the parking arm just to feel a bit cooler than if they simply walked around the toll booth. A few cars litter the garage, none of them very new or even slightly expensive looking. The concrete walls are painted in graffiti, the building’s management having given up on trying to strip it ages ago. Elodie comes to a halt in front of one section of wall, where someone has tagged “SEX PISTOLS” in a fairly faithful recreation of the band’s signature font.
Elodie scoffs. “Pistols are fucking posers. Did you know they didn’t couldn’t even play instruments before being put in a band by some industry hack?”
She swings her bag off her shoulder, reaching in and pulling out a can of spray paint. She shakes the can, the marble inside rattling against the aluminum and mixing the paint. Crudely, she paints over the “SEX” with “SUCK” in black paint.
“But then you have Siouxsie Sioux, an actual badass, making real music, and she gets tossed aside for a bunch of dudes who barely understand what punk really means. She was the one who made those fucks famous in the first place!”
“Huh.” Maude says, head tilting to the side inquisitively. “I didn’t know that.”
“See? They get all the credit! Tomorrow I’ll bring my walkman and play you some Banshees. She’ll change your life.”
Tomorrow. A promise.
Satisfied with her handiwork, Elodie packs up her paint and leads Maude deeper into the garage, to the back where fluorescent lights go from buzzing to burnt out. A beat-up subaru sits in the shadows, lonely.
“So, you ever hotwire a car before?”
Maude shakes their head. “Never.”
A wicked smile dances on Elodie’s face. Mischief never looked so good.
“Watch me. Next time, I’ll show you how to do it yourself, but it’s always better to watch a master work before you try,” she boasts, clearly gleaming from the opportunity to show off.
She pulls out a set of tools from her backpack - reaching for one which almost resembles a swiss army knife, but when she slides out a tool it’s nothing like Maude’s ever seen before. “I got this sucker off some guy in an alley. Kind of sketch, but it’s a magic maker. Has everything you need to pick any lock in the city. At least, that’s what he told me. Hasn’t failed me so far, though!” She gets to work on the lock, ear pressed to the door of the car and moving the tool with precision. After a few minutes and a few swears muttered under her breath, the door opens without the alarm triggering.
“Et voilà!” Elodie gestures dramatically, eliciting a quiet clap from Maude.
She gets into the car and unlocks it for Maude to climb into the passenger side. Using a screwdriver, she takes off the steering wheel to reveal a mess of wires underneath. The way she pulls out the three exact wires she needs - one brown, one yellow and one red - speaks to a practiced eye. Elodie shines in her element; a professional vandal if ever there was one. The car begins to spring to life as she peels back the insulation on the wires and twists them together, the rumble of the engine a chorus to her orchestration.
The steering wheel is returned to it’s place, Elodie throwing the screwdriver in the backseat and looking over to Maude, proud. “Pretty cool, right?”
“You’re amazing,” Maude says without reservation. “I’m… happy I met you.”
It earns them a softer smile from Elodie, the first time Maude feels like using the word sweet to describe her. She revs her foot on the gas in experimentation. The sloppy jalopy roars, an answer where words aren’t sufficient.
“Now, let’s see how fast this fucker can go before the engine blows.”
