A local Tradition, apparently.

Lauren spun the wheel once again, turning the small car smoothly onto the roundabout that led to the expressway. She loved to drive fast, sometimes a bit faster than strictly necessary, as the occasional white knuckled hand on a knee would attest, but she was good at it. Besides, on her dashboard sat the ultimate ticket repellent, two foam pigs with grunt squeakers that no police officer yet had looked at without smiling and letting her off with a stern look and a warning.

"What is this place like?" Viola asked, enjoying the ride a bit. As far as she was concerned, Lauren was making this ride fun, and she glanced back occasionally to see Robin in the back seat, his arm stretched across the bench comfortably.

"It used to be big with me and my room mates in college," Lauren exclaimed happily. "Pretty cheap, but there's a lot of it."

"Nowadays there's a lot of older folks. They put in a retirement home a couple blocks down a couple years ago, so... you know about retirement homes and buffets. But the folks at this one are pretty cool. Mostly they just eat and relax. It's low key." Lauren explained further, passing a semi truck and pulling quickly into an exit on right which led towards the college. "Besides, it's right near Miranda's college, and she eats there all the time. If she's done with classes for the day, we could give her a ride home."

"It's not even eleven," Viola pointed out.

"Eh, it's my college theory, and she likes it. I mean, it's kinda backasswords, but it worked for me and it works for her." Robin smiled, firing off a litany. "Classes, nothing after three, Beer is necessary only if you don't have pot, try not to wake up your girlfriends who work the opposite schedule when you come in, and if you don't have a car, don't worry about it, because if you can't walk everywhere you're not really getting the college experience."

"That sounds rehearsed..." Viola chortled. "You two are goofballs." She was about to continue further when she felt Lauren's hand run over her knee. A slight thrill went through her at the touch, and she relaxed into the seat as the car bumped over several small potholes in the road. "So, Robin... you don't drive?"

"Just don't really see the point," Robin shrugged. "Everybody else in the world wants to drive, so... might as well let em. "

"But he used to freak out all the time. When the girls were learning to drive, oh... that was funny. I should have taken reaction video. " Lauren glanced back at Robin, who flushed a little red at that.

"Hey, didn't say that it was always EASY..." Robin ran a couple of what looked like wooden and stone beads on a string through his fingers. The motion was repeated several times, and Viola found her gaze drawn to them as he continued to do so. It was kinda interesting, and she noted that as he made the motions, some of the tension seemed to leave his body.

"OOh, what's with the beads?" She asked, "Same thing as the ones on your ankles?"

"Yeah, plus, you know, something to keep my hands busy. I don't do fidget spinners, and with this I can do some fun little mind puzzles if my brain starts going bad places." Robin grinned.

'Bad places?" Viola asked, "Sorry, am I asking too much?"

"No, no, I'm totally open about this. Uhm... I have issues sometimes with being out and about. It's not every time, and it's not every place, but... it's complicated. My brains still a little... fucked up from my time overseas." Robin explained. "If you want me to give you my diagnoses, I can give you the technical terms, but I figure that it's easier and faster to just let folks know how it affects them."

"SO, what kind of puzzles?" Viola asked. "I mean, you've got... what... just beads on a string there."

"Yeah, well, I've got six strands altogether, with twenty four beads on each, which means one hundred forty four beads altogether. The Clear Beads are set at a space of three colored to one clear which is a ratio of one to three resulting in forty eight clear beads and ninety six colored beads... You see where I'm going with this... can do Fibonacci numbers... Just a nice little mental exercise to keep track of ratios, numbers, time. When my brain starts going bad places, it's the equivalent of trying to jam an enemy radio signal. Doesn't always work, but combined with a smoke and a little perspective... does wonders. But far as anybody else is concerned... just the weird hippy guy wearing beads on his wrist."

Lauren easily slotted the car into an angled parking spot about halfway back in a small sparsely populated lot. It was a bit out of the city, far enough that there were more trees than usual and the manicured lawns had looked actually tended. It looked like somebody had recently hosed down the parking lot with something, as it was much damper than the surrounding pavement. Viola took in the Black and Yellow painted restaurant with a small sign out front that looked cut from a large tree trunk. Someone had hand painted a large cartoon man in a captain's hat and beard upon it, grinning and holding a frying pan. The paint was fairly new, and it looked like the sign was frequently touched up.