Delivery Date Thursday, April 18, 2024 - 07:45 AM PST Topic Entertainment You have, at most, thirty seconds to make whoever opens the door like you. You find the one thing they love most (the car, the lawn, the dog) and compliment it. You smile big. Maybe you ask what the score of the game is, because there's always a game. Maybe you ask about the print on the wall. Maybe you turn your hat around backwards and put on an accent. It's different for every door. There are people who say I think about pizza delivery too much, but I say that it always pays to do your best at whatever. July is a bad month for us. It's hot, and with school out we get a lot of kids. With kids there's nothing you can do because they don't understand tipping. That's about as close as this job gets to being frustrating, though. Most of the time, I can’t believe I get paid for this. I drive. I listen to my own music. I get to be by myself and I stay busy. As it stands I’ll probably clear a hundred dollars cash today and get another forty for my hourly wage. It’ll all go in the bank too because I won’t have enough time between close tonight and open tomorrow to spend much of it. I take my foot off the gas, trusting my car’s alignment problem to guide me over to the curb. There are three delivery cars in the store lot, and that means I’m going to have to wait for my turn to take another run. One of those cars belongs to James, which is weird because he usually just comes in for the night rush. We’re the only two guys on the driver schedule over twenty two. Usually there’s more of us senior citizens, but we lost three last month in a walk-in freezer pot smoking incident. Old guys never leave; they always get fired. It's all laziness. If you work here it means you're too lazy to wait tables and too lazy to finish school and get a real job. This often translates into too lazy to look for other work, and occasionally, too lazy to do even this job the right way. I’ve been here two years. "Hey Scotteee! What’s up man?" James says. "Sup James... not too busy I see." "Oh we got some runs on the board, but the fuckin’ new guys are taking a fuckin’ day to get in and out," he points to the two guys in the corner, poking tentatively at the check out computer. The bills of their company caps are flat and crisp. My bill is broken in and rolled tight. "Let’s go show ‘em how the pros do it," James says and grins. Yeah right, pros. There’s a lot of turnover with young guys. The high school kids go off to college. The college kids get better jobs after graduation. The loser kids get promoted into the management track. All of them know that driving is a temporary stop in their career path. They look at the old guys like me and James and they feel sorry for us. Since I’m just standing around, Manager Bill hassles me into taking phone orders until my run comes out of the oven. Bill’s new, but he seems like a good guy, and he’s a lot more competent than most of the managers we get in here. Usually I like the incompetent guys better, though. They don’t know enough to hassle idle drivers. They just try to do everything themselves and end up having heart attacks when they get a serious rush. My runs finally come up. "Hey Scott," Bill drawls, "Remember your training, and you will come back alive." I smile and snap a sharp salute as I head out the door. It’s good to be back in the car. 12 Winslow Trail isn’t a really big house compared to some of the castles in that neighborhood, but it is bigger than any house I will ever live in. I realize why the address seems familiar. I took an order here yesterday and it was a kid and he stiffed me on the tip. Now I don't give a shit about service; I'm just thinking about how nice it will be when I can get back in my air conditioning. I pull into the driveway and park around the side of the house. I'd like to keep the air running , but I have a rule that if I'm going to be out of sight of the car, I turn it off and take the keys. It's a bit of a hike around to the front, and by the time I get there, I have wet circles under my armpits. I ring the doorbell and knock. You always have to do both because some people's doorbells don't work and some people can't hear a knock from anywhere except five feet in front of the door. I count down from 60, ring and knock one more time. I am just about ready to go back to the car when the door opens. The kid looks about ten years old, lanky and hispanic. He's out of breath. "What took you so fucking long?" he says. "You got a dirty mouth for a nine year old." "I'm twelve, so fuck you." "Ten eighty one." "What?" "That's how much you owe me." "Oh." He hands me eleven dollars. "Keep the change." "You are a prince among men." "Whatever dude." I get back in the car and take off my hat to let my head air out some. I don't notice until I try to pull out of the driveway that something is wrong. "Fucking hell." I walk around the side of the car and stare at the flat tire for a minute. I kick it. I knock on the door again. The kid takes his time, and I'm starting to really sweat. "I not give you enough money or something?" "No, I need to use your phone if it's not too much trouble." "Yeah, well it's some trouble, but whatever." He walks back into the house, leaving the door open. I follow and try not to look like I'm checking the place out. Marble floor, high ceiling. Nice. He's in the living room sprawled on a couch that looks too big for normal people. "Phone's on the counter." "Thanks." Manager Bill is in no hurry to rescue me. He says Dave will be out when he finishes his next run, maybe 45 minutes. Dave will drop me at the tire store and it's up to me from there. I hang up the phone. I don't know Dave; he's new. The kid's playing Killer Instinct. He is slouched down on the couch so far that his chin is digging into his chest, and his feet still don't touch the ground. His thumbs are twitching, but he looks bored. "You want a game?" I ask. "What, you got nowhere to be?" he says without looking at me. "Not now." He jerks his head in the direction of another controller lying on the carpet and keeps playing. I pick it up and jump in the game. I totally destroy the kid. I beat him five games to none. Two rounds he doesn't even land a punch. "You know what you have to do since you lost?" I say. "What." "Steer my car while I push it out into the street." He just stares at me. "Well I'm not going to get back here with a tire until past five, and I don't want your parents to freak out because there's some busted up car in the driveway." He doesn't say anything, just gets up and heads for the door. We get the car into the street, and the kid does a pretty good job of getting up close to the curb. I loosen the nuts and start jacking the car up. The kid watches. Every now and then he asks a question about what I'm doing, and I do my best to answer. He nods like I'm a zen master. I get the rim off just as my ride pulls up. "Thanks for the help," I say. "By the way, what's your name man?" "Eric Flores. What's yours?" "Scott." I shake his hand and he grips me back hard, flexing every muscle in his skinny arms. "See you later Eric," I say. "Ok," he says. * * * The guy at the tire store comes out shaking his head. "I guess that means you can't repair it," I say. "Naw, somebody slashed you up good." "What?" "Your tire man. Big gash. Somebody slashed you up good." * * * My apartment looks burglarized. There are clothes hanging off of every piece of furniture, covering every open space. "Jesus Christ, get ready already. We're going to be late," Sofia's voice drifts from somewhere in the apartment. It all starts to come back. Friend's birthday. Club. Drinks. "I don't think I want to go," I say. "Well too bad, you don't have a choice. Everyone's expecting us." "I had a shitty day at work." "Oh please, what happened, your tape player ate Bob Dylan?" Now I don't really want to tell her. On the way home, I had been thinking about the story. Where would I put the pauses for effect? "The tires were slashed!" I would say, and she would sit back in surprise. Now I just want to go to bed. "You can go," I say, " I'm tired, I'd just drag you down. She's more your friend anyway." "You know once you get out of the house you'll be fine. You always have a good time, even when I have to drag you kicking and screaming." "Please, no dragging tonight. I'm just going to go to sleep. I have to open tomorrow, you know." "Ok," she says and kisses me thoroughly. Sofia always smells good. "I'm going to miss you though." I'm glad she lets it drop, but part of me wishes she'd put up more of a fight. "What if I get home tonight and I feel like I need to be held?" she asks. "Don't wake me up." "What if I'm drunk and I desperately need someone to take advantage of me?" "Don't wake me up." Sofia falls into my lap, swooning. "What if I'm being chased by a psychotic killer and I need a big strong man to rescue me?" "You know where we keep the kitchen knives. Don't wake me up." She slaps my face lightly, and looks at her watch. "Shit. I'm going to be late." "You look beautiful." "Jesus, I should hope so after all the time I spent getting ready." She kisses me again, grabs her purse, and walks out the door. I strip down to my boxers and get myself a beer from the fridge. I wander around the apartment for a while, picking Sofia's clothes up and hanging them in the closet. I turn off all the lights. Then, I sit down and flip channels for a while. I pick up the phone. "Coed party line, where your hottest fantasies come true." "Yeah, could you connect me to Jenny please." "She's partying with someone else right now, how about I hook you up with another one of our ladies?" "Tell her Arlo's waiting." "Hey, it's your dime." The phone clicks off for about thirty seconds, then clicks back on again. "Hey baby, great timing. I was just finishing off." "How's business Jenny?" "Oh, you know, down and dirty, how about yourself?" "You won't believe it. First, I got this flat tire in the middle of a delivery..." * * * 12 Winslow Trail comes up again the next day. Technically it is supposed to go to James, but I trade him an order that's only couple of blocks away. This time I park in the street where I can keep an eye on my car. I ring and knock. "How much is it?" Eric yells from inside the house. "$73.92 you little shit." "No it's not, it's $10.81." "Yeah, well, tires are expensive." He opens the door. "I didn't slash your tires." The way he says it makes me want to punch him in the face. "Well, they weren't slashed when I got here yesterday, I know that much." "Yeah, well you can't prove it was me," he says. "This isn't The People's Court," I say. There's no innocent until proven guilty. I already know it was you, you have to prove that it wasn't." Eric digs around in his back pocket and pulls out four twenties. "Please don't be mad." I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. "Where the hell did you get this money?" "You ever hear of something called an al-LOW-ance." He rolls his eyes and walks back into the house, leaving the door open. I follow him. "You got time to hang out today?" Eric says. "I can always stretch a run by twenty minutes or so. They don't watch us that close." "Good, I've been practicing Killer Instinct. I'm ready to kick your ass." "Yeah, that's what you... wait.... what the fuck? You slash my tires yesterday; I show up today and you want me to sit down and play fucking video games?" "Yeah." He sits on the couch with the controller in his hand, waiting for me. "Ok," I say, "Ok, fair enough." We play for a while, and I clobber him again. He's more intense today, though. More focused. He's studying everything I do, and it's starting to help. After about ten minutes, he throws the controller on the floor and heads for the kitchen. "You want some pizza?" he asks. "Hell no," I say, "I can't stand that shit anymore." "I could never get tired of pizza." "Yeah, well you say that now, but if you ate it every day, you'd get tired of it pretty quick." "I could never get tired of pizza." He grabs the entire box and sets it on the living room floor. "Why would you want to slash my tires?" I ask. His mouth is full and he finishes chewing before he speaks. "I don't know." "Bullshit." "I don't know," he says, "I was bored." "So every time you get bored you go on a stabbing rampage?" "No, not like that. I mean I was bored, and you seemed ok before. So I thought, you know, maybe you'd hang out for a while." "And you didn't give a shit how I felt about it." Eric shrugs and takes another bite of pizza. "Yeah well, now I gotta go," I say. "Ok." "You ordering a pizza tomorrow?" I ask. "My dad leaves me money every day," he says. "I'll see you tomorrow then." "Ok." * * * Sofia is at the table when I get home. She is leafing through papers. At first I think she's looking at the bills, then I realize it's grad school applications. My old grad school applications. She doesn't look up when I come in. "I didn't know you took art history." "I didn't know you cared." "Why wouldn't I care? I care about anything that's about you." We slowly get louder as I walk back into the bedroom to change. "What about my sweaty pizza hat? How much do you care about that?" I yell out to her. "That can stay outside. Seriously though, you look really good on paper. If I were running a school, I'd have let you in," she yells back to me. "Thanks. If you were running a school, I might have gone." I come out and throw a pot of water on the stove to boil. Macaroni and cheese is the only food we have left in the apartment. "I talked to my dad today," Sofia says. "What did he have to say?" "He wants us to come see him in Washington sometime this summer. He says he'll buy the plane tickets." "I don't know if I feel comfortable with that." "What, going to Washington, or him buying the tickets?" "Pick one." "Hey, he's trying to make an effort here, you know, mend some fences or whatever. It wouldn't hurt you to do the same." "He's not mending fences with me, he's mending fences with you. I'm just part of the package." "Well at least it's an opportunity. You could get him to like you, you know. You're good at that." "No, he's always going to wish his little girl did better. That's just the way dads work." "His little girl did just fine." I go to the fridge, get a beer, and land on the couch. The TV comes on without me thinking about it. Sofia comes up behind me and starts rubbing my shoulders. "Promise me you'll think about it," she says. "Of course baby. Of course." She curls up in my lap, and we fall asleep like that. * * * Next morning Manager Bill tells me that we have a new initiative. "We are going to keep these floors clean. We are going to sweep these floors every hour on the hour." I say, "What we need is an initiative to keep people from smoking ganja on the job." "Then I wouldn't have any drivers," he says. "Fair enough." The drivers sometimes talk about what Manager Bill does when he's not being a manager. "It's unhealthy the way that guy loves his job," James says. "I bet he comes up here and unlocks the store in the middle of the night just to be near the dough." "No," I say, "He brings his wife with him and they do it on the counters. He slathers pizza sauce all over her and then licks it off." "You are a dirty monkey Scott." "Never said I wasn't." * * * "What's up with all that shit?" Eric says, pointing to my oil pan full of tools. "I thought we'd do a little something different today," "Yeah, like what?" "Well Manager Bill gave me an hour off to get my oil changed, I thought we'd do it here." Eric looks back inside for a second, shrugs his shoulders, and shuts the door behind him. "You can change the oil. I'm eating my pizza." "Ok." He grunts, sits down on the curb, and digs in while I slide under the car. "This is really a lot easier than most people think," I say as I try to get the oil plug out of the pan. Eric doesn't say anything, but he moves around the other side of the car to get a better look. The oil starts draining, and I slide out from under the car. "Nothing to it." "Where did you learn all this shit?" he asks. "Some of it I learned from my dad, some from books. You know, something breaks down, so I have to learn how fix it. That kind of thing." "My dad taught me how to fish." "That's cool. Where do you guys go fishing?" "Out in the Gulf, but we haven't been in a while." "So you get along with your dad pretty well." "Yeah, he's cool. And he leaves me money to get pizza every day." "Good deal. So it's just the two of you in this mansion?" "Yeah, it's just us now." I leave it alone. I fiddle around under the hood. "Hey, you want to come put this oil filter in?" "Yeah," he says, "but if you get oil on these shoes, I'm going to kick your ass." "Oooh, big words little man." "Just shut up and tell me how to do this already." * * * When I get home, there's a note on the table. Sofia's at the library tonight. Big test tomorrow. I don't know why she takes these summer courses; she doesn't need the credit. She could have graduated this year if she wanted to. Some guy gave me ribs for a tip today. They were having a barbecue and ordered pizza for the vegetarians. The ribs aren't bad after a minute or two in the microwave. I go and get a beer from the fridge. We're down to our last six pack. Almost time to go shopping again. I decide I don't really like watching TV programs, I just like the TV itself. I flip channels at about three per second. It puts me in a kind of trance. Time passes, but I don't feel it. I get the sights and sounds of the outside world filtered and rapid fire. Everything blurs together. Sofia comes in at some point and helps me to bed. I automatically set the alarm for 9 am. Even when I fall asleep with all my clothes on, I remember to set the alarm. There's always work in the morning. * * * Bill takes me aside and tells me he's giving me a raise. "You've been a great help to a new manager at a new store," he says. "You volunteer for more hours than I would ask from anyone. You don't complain, you just do your job and you do it well." "What can I say, I'm the Deliverator." * * * "Who crapped in your corn flakes?" Eric asks. "What?" "You just look pissed off is all." "Oh. I was just thinking about my girlfriend." "She must be a real bitch." "You know what?" I say, "I really don't want to talk about her with you." "You brought it up." Eric sits on the big chair, a leg splayed over each arm-rest, trading off between his video game and his pizza. I lie on the couch, staring at the ceiling. "So what do you do when I'm not around?" I ask. "You're looking at it." "You have to do something besides play video games." "Oh, sometimes I watch TV. Sometimes I get on the Internet." "You should do something else," I say. "Ride a bike or read a book or something." "Is that what you do when you get off work? Ride bikes and read books?" "We're not talking about me." "Whatever." Eric finishes his slice and goes back to playing the game. "Do you ever even go outside?" I ask. "I can't." "What do you mean you can't? You a vampire or something? Allergic to the sun?" Eric sets his controller down and looks at me. "My dad says I can't. I get in trouble with the other kids." "What kind of trouble?" "They're assholes anyway." He picks up his controller and goes back to the game. "If you say so." "Well I do... say so, I mean." "Ok." * * * "I'm not going to Washington." Sofia sits back in her chair. "Why not?" "I don't think I can afford the plane ticket, and I wouldn't feel right taking the money from your dad." "That's bullshit Scott. That's such fucking bullshit." "Hey you may get all the money you could ever want from mommy and daddy but some of us have to work for it. Some of us have to watch every penny." "Yeah, and you've got a few thousand... a few hundred thousand pennies in the bank, so I don't see what the big deal is." "Well, the big deal is that I don't think I can afford to go, but I don't expect you to understand that." "Jesus Christ, don't you see this is worse?" "What?" "This excuse is worse than anything you could have told me. Now I'm just going to wonder why you don't want to come, and everything I come up with is going to be worse than the truth." "Did it ever occur to you that maybe I'm telling the truth?" "Did it ever occur to you that maybe I know you better than you give me credit for?" Sofia takes another bite of the pizza I brought her. Mushroom and jalepeno. Small pizza with no meat is a single woman under 30 at least 90 percent of the time. She chews it for a long time before she speaks again. "Well if you're not going to Washington, where are you going?" "What do you mean?" She gestures around the apartment as if the meaning is obvious. "Look around. Where are you going Scott?" I take a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth. "I'm going to bed." * * * August sneaks up on me. The days tend to run together when you work seven a week. We're in the home stretch of summer now, and no one wants to be outside. People scurry from one air conditioned place to another. Eric doesn't answer the door anymore, he just yells "Come in!" Lately he has been trying to grow this moustache. It is the most pitiful piece of facial hair I have ever seen. "Look on the bright side," I say, "At least this is proof that you need to shave." "I'm still prettier than you are fuckface." "Yeah, give your lip another comb-through and tell me again." "Your mom likes it just fine like this," he says. "Fair enough," I say. "Did you finish that book I loaned you yet?" "No." "I gave it to you last week." "Well I've been busy." "Yeah, I can tell." "Hey, just because you're all cranky with your girlfriend out of town, doesn't mean you have to get pissy with me," he says. "I'm just tired of you playing this stupid video game all of the time." "What do you want to do instead, mow the lawn?" I look around. Boredom practically seeps from the walls of this house. "You ever deliver a pizza Eric?" "You know my dad says I can't leave the house." "I know. I don't think I like your dad very much." Eric finishes out his game and sits perfectly still for a second. He is still looking at the TV, but his eyes lose focus. "Ok," he says, "Ok let's go." We're less than two blocks away when Eric decides he's had all he can stand of The Grateful Dead. He puts on the radio and finds a rap station. He sings along, and I find myself taking corners a little faster, just to impress him. When we get to the store I make him put his head down on the seat. We're not allowed to have other people with us when we're delivering, it's a liability issue. "I'll be right back," I say. "You'd better be. This seat is pretty nasty." Manager Bill gives me a nod on the way in and a nod on the way out. He trusts me to do my job. I get three pizzas, two to a house on Farbar and one all the way down on Bradford. I also grab a name-tag for Eric that says Pizza Delivery-person in Training (PDT). I pick it up as a joke, but he seems to like it. He pins it on his shirt right up near the collar. "So how do you know where to go?" Eric asks. "They have a big map on the wall inside." "But you don't need that anymore, do you?" "No, not really." The Farbar run is close and we get there in about five minutes. There are balloons on the door. It looks like someone is having a birthday party. "Ring the doorbell," I say. Eric rings it. "Knock too. Some people's doorbells don't work." He reaches up to knock, but the door opens. It opens onto toddler hell. The snot-and-drool smell of young children wafts out to us. The woman standing in the door has a kid under her arm. She seems harried but cheerful. "You look a little young to be a pizza guy," she says to Eric. "That's why he's a pizza guy in training," I say. "I'm his little brother," Eric says. "That's so cute," the woman says. She gives me a two dollar tip, thinks for a second, and then gives Eric an extra dollar. "You guys be safe. Those roads are hell." "We sure will ma'am." "Thanks," Eric says, holding the dollar in both hands. We don't talk much in the car. Eric is too busy examining his dollar. He turns it over, rolls it up, unrolls it, and folds it into little squares. "Don't spend it all in one place," I say. "A dollar doesn't mean anything," he says. "What can you buy for a dollar?" He squints his eyes to read the fine print on the back. * * * The Bradford run is back in the middle class area that runs up against the castles of Eric's neighborhood. He knows these streets. "Turn right here," he says. "I know." The house is small, but the address has been freshly painted on the mailbox so we don't have any trouble finding the place. The front lawn is manicured to perfection. "Watch out where you step," I say. "Guys like this are touchy about their grass." A guy in his mid thirties answers the door and gets into it right away. "The guy on the phone said it would be about thirty minutes. That was at 2:20, and do you see what time it is?" We get these assholes all the time. I make a show of looking at my watch. "3:00 sir." "Well I don't know if you're any good at math, but that is not thirty minutes." "I'm sorry sir, but all of our delivery times are approximate. We like to focus on the best quality pizza rather than the absolute fastest..." "Well that's fine as long as you don't expect me to pay for a late pizza." "I'm not really allowed to discount orders sir, you're welcome to call the manager if you'd like. He may be able to..." "You better believe I'm going to talk to a goddamn manager..." he looks at my name tag, "Scott. You ever hear the phrase the customer is always right? You better believe I'm talking to a manager..." "Fuck you!" The voice comes from behind me. "Fuck you!" Eric yells again. "This guy delivers your pizza because you are too fucking lazy to get it yourself, and you give him shit? What the fuck is wrong with you? Your fucking..." I snap out of my stupor, and my hand clamps over Eric's mouth. I start backing toward the car, the pizza still in my left hand and Eric in my right. I have my entire arm wrapped around his head. He is struggling, but I can carry six pizzas in that arm; he doesn't have a chance. "Get off the goddamn grass!" the customer yells, coming back to life. Eric gets his mouth free of my hand for second. "Eat my ass, motherfucker!" I shove him into the car, and we haul ass back toward Eric's house. "What the fuck were you thinking?" I ask. "I think you made my lip start bleeding," he says. "You know what?" I say. "I think you just got me fired." "You shouldn't let people treat you like that." "Bill is going to fucking kill me." "Where are we going now?" "You're going home. I'm going back to work." * * * "Scott, I just got a weird phone call." "Was it from that Bradford run?" "Yeah, the guy sounded really pissed off. Said you were rude to him." "That guy was like... a total psycho. He was one of those 'forty minutes means free' dudes, and he just... like he wouldn't listen to reason. He started to get pretty threatening, so I just, you know, took the pizza and got out of there." "That's all I needed to hear. You did the right thing, Scott. You always do." "Thanks Bill. I appreciate that." * * * I hate coming home to an empty apartment. It's not so bad when Sofia's just gone for the evening, when I can still see her tracks. The dirty dishes in the sink, the toothbrush on the counter, the remote in a different place than I left it. These are signs that there are other people in the world. Sofia's been gone for a week, and her tracks are fading fast. "She hasn't called you?" Jenny asks. "She hasn't called me and I haven't called her." "So do you think this is it? The big break up?" "Jesus, I hope not. It's just... I feel like the whole thing is kind of my fault. Like I feel guilty. But at the same time, every day that I don't call her makes it harder to pick up the phone, you know? It's the routine. Always the routine." "Well you know what I think you should do...." "Hey, hold on Jenny, there's a call on the other line." I switch over. "Hello?" "Hello," Sofia says. "Oh, hi." "I was just calling to make arrangements for when I get back. I get in at 10pm on the 24th. Are you going to be able to pick me up?" "The 24th, that's a Tuesday right?" "Let me check... yes." "Sorry, I have to close on Tuesday nights for the next two weeks. And I'm opening Wednesday, so I really have to be up early." "Oh, it's not a problem. I can take a cab." "Ok... so how's Washington?" "Nice. The weather's nice... it's been like 70 all week." "I'm jealous." "Listen, I've really got to go. Dad's taking me out to dinner." "Uh... ok, have fun." "I will, bye." "Bye." Jenny has already hung up on the other line. She could have stayed on and run up my bill, but she's not like that. * * * There is something different about Eric's house today, but it takes me a second to figure it out. There is a car in the driveway, a clean Lexus. I sit in my car for a minute before I get up the nerve to ring the doorbell. A thin, neat looking man in a t-shirt and jeans answers the door. "Wow that smells good," he says. "Thank you sir... we try." "So do you have some kind of thing for me to sign?" "Oh sure, right here." I grab credit card slip from the box. "So what kind of work do you do that let’s you stay home on a Monday afternoon and tell me where I can apply." He chuckles politely. "My law firm is letting me work at home for now. This way I get to spend more time with my son. Here you go, I put the tip on the card." "Thanks a lot." I look over the man's shoulder and catch a glimpse of Eric peeking out from a doorway. He shakes his head at me. A warning, as if I don't know enough to keep my mouth shut. I want to apologize for the way things went yesterday, but it can wait. The door shuts, leaving me standing on the front doorstep holding a credit card slip. The dad is full of shit about working at home. He bought a cheese pizza, put it on a credit card, and gave me a fifty cent tip. People who are feeling financially stable get toppings. That’s just the way it is. * * * I don't get another order to 12 Winslow Trail for a week. It’s a large pepperoni and mushroom, and it’s listed for a cash payment. As I pull up to the house, I notice a new SUV in the driveway. A man I have never met answers the door. "Hi, how are you doing today?" The words come out of my mouth on their own. My brain has quit working. "Fine, how much do I owe you?" "10 dollars and 81 cents." He gives me thirteen. I give him the wrong change twice before he tells me to forget about it and starts to shut the door. "Is Eric here by any chance?” "Excuse me?" "Eric Flores. He lives here." "Oh no, I’m sorry, we’re just moving in." He gestures to the large cardboard boxes scattered around the house. "Do you know... The family that lived here, do you know where they went... where they moved to?" The guy just stares at me like he can't really understand what I'm saying. "I'm sorry," I say. "I'm sorry. Welcome to the neighborhood.” I get in the car and I drive. Forty five minutes later I remember that I have another pizza in the car that needs to be delivered. By the time I get to the house, the woman who ordered the pizza is out on the lawn. Her face is red. She’s probably been talking to Manager Bill. This late, he almost certainly gave it to her for free. I stop and hand her the pizza out the window. She opens her mouth to say something, but I don’t wait to hear it. * * * Bill calls out from behind the counter, “What happened with that Bluebonnet run?” “I don’t know.” "You don’t know? Well first she calls to tell me you're late, then she calls again to tell me that you were rude when you finally showed up." "Yeah, I guess I was." Clearly not the answer Bill was expecting. "Listen Scott, you've been here longer than I have, but that doesn't give you some kind of license to fuck up. I'm trying to run a business here, you know?" "Yeah." "You know what we do here? We make pizzas and we deliver them, fast. If you don't want to be a part of what we do here, then you're welcome to leave." I remove my form fitted company hat and throw it at him. I walk out the door, and I don’t look back. * * * It's late and there aren't many people at the airport. The guy standing next to me has flowers. I am wearing a bright red company shirt. I smell like pizza and sweat. She comes off the plane and she looks like shit. She looks like she's had a terrible flight. Her face brightens a little when she sees me, but not much. She gives me a hug. She sniffs her nose a little but I pretend not to notice. "I thought you couldn't pick me up. I thought you had to be up early," she says. "Turns out that I don't." "Well still, you look like shit. You look like you need a rest more than I do. I could have taken a cab." "I have a story to tell you about somebody I met this summer. I haven't told you a story in a long time." "It couldn't wait?" "No. I think I’ve waited long enough already." She braces herself. Sofia always expects the worst. "Ok," she says, "let's hear it then." "You won't believe it. First, I got this flat tire in the middle of a delivery..." This article comes from Shmeng http://www.shmeng.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.shmeng.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=624