It was nearly Summertime, the end of his senior year of high school at Lloyd Perkins, and Richard had just turned 18. And thank Christ and all his holy buddies for that, because Richard's parents had finally left him be. They knew he wasn't college-minded. He was smart, sure enough, just depressed out of his skull and he spent most of his time out and about.
At first it was mostly cruising around, stopping here and there to talk to kids around town that he knew. Then, one day, he had been especially down and had snuck out of class to go and be alone, when a creepy girl, around his age, approached him and handed him an envelope. She waited for him to open it, and no matter how many times he asked what it was, she just stared. Her name was Sarah, and he had seen her around for a few years. Lately she had adopted a new look, wearing a blank, grey baseball cap with her tight blond curls poofing out around the edges like a wild fur scarf. She refused to remove the cap, even though some of her teachers gave her detention for it, as it was against school policy.
When he finally caved in and opened her letter, it turned out to be addressed to him. It was a job offer, even though he hadn't applied for one, and it requested that he should visit Sarah's house where she could explain better. It said his job would be highly secretive and highly lucrative, which he knew sounded weird, but he was in a weird state of mind. So why not? He read on, quickly, to the end of the letter, and it was signed, "your employer".
Richard told Sarah he would meet her, and that he knew where she lived. He started to ask her what exactly it was all about, but she was already leaving. He decided that he wasn't scared at all, and would bring his butterfly knife, just in case. He was so lost these days, that he wasn't afraid to die. This sounded like adventure, of some kind, and if it looked like a murder scene waiting to happen, he'd get the hell out of there.
So after school, he drove to his house really quick to grab his knife and heat up a slice of pizza. His stomach was so jittery that he almost coughed up the last few bites of pepperoni. He wasn't worried much, mostly just excited. Maybe he'd have to stab somebody. Or maybe it'd be a real job opportunity, but with a note so cryptic and nondescript, he doubted it. He was ready for the worst, he believed.
In ten minutes he was parked in the projects. Plenty of subsidized housing and dealers in this neck of the woods. Someone had told him once that if someone's door was open and there was a red light inside, they were selling high-end drugs, but if there was a blue light inside, they were selling pot and weaker stuff. He knew he lacked street-smarts and was an easy target for a mugging, but he was almost to Sarah's door before he even saw another person. It was just an old black woman dragging a toddler along. The little black boy gawked up at him, and Richard looked down and smiled. The little boy skipped a couple times before his mother snagged his hand again, instantly calming him down.
Here was Sarah's place, apartment 214. He had been here once, tagging along with a group of kids he had been drinking with at a party. They weren't headed to Sarah's place, but they had passed her door going to another apartment and someone had pointed it out to him. Richard had a wonderful memory when it came to things like that, even when drunk.
He knocked twice, and within a couple seconds he saw someone looking out through the peep-hole. She undid the dead-bolt and the chain and pulled him in gently after glancing outside the doorway in a paranoid manner. A Hole song was playing on the stereo. The singer was wailing away.
"So, what's this all about?", he asked her, amused that she was only halfway dressed, wearing jeans and a black, strapless bra.
To his surprise she actually said something, "You'll see soon enough. I can't say too much. The info is on a need-to-know basis."
"Ah, why be so mysterious? Do you deal drugs or something?", he said, watching her turn toward him and, for the first time, noticing a fist-sized bruise above her bellybutton.
She caught him looking at it and pulled her peasant blouse on, "Maybe. But that isn't what this is about. Like I said, you'll see. And it's no strings attached, so if you don't want to, no one will make you. But I'll call you a pussy."
He shrugged, " Let's get this over with."
She nodded, and something about how she walked past him was condescending. Sarah turned her T.V. on as they left and cranked the volume up. She said they wanted him because he could drive, so they rode in his car, a beat-up Corolla painted shit brown. He asked her if she minded the Sex Pistols and she just replied, "Whatever". She smelled unclean, like her apartment, so he opened the windows a little.
After about five minutes she directed him across the crappy area of town and off toward the junk yards on the far Northeast side. She told him to pull into Herbert's at the end of the lane. It was an auto salvage yard full of rusty, wrecked cars. They were all lined up in long rows, with a lane through the middle for cars. The grass between the wrecks had grown about neck high. Richard was glad he wasn't allergic to pollen.
There was a double-wide in the back corner with an old dirt bike leaning on the front steps. A barbecue pit of solid iron rusted in a tangle of weeds. He could hear cicadas over Anarchy in the U.K. The place felt like a cemetery. Like something might be buried out in that grass besides fucked up cars. It gave him a chill.
"Stop here", Sarah commanded softly.
"Why?", Richard asked, still inching toward the trailer home in the back.
"Stop. We need to announce ourselves to the doorman."
"Mkay" he replied and put his Toyota in park.
"Wait here a sec", she said and hopped out. There was an outhouse at the end of the lane that ran through the junkyard. Sarah walked over to it, walking around a few holes grown over with weeds that could snap your leg if you weren't watching. Richard could see her tapping on the door, and after a minute he could hear her talking to someone. They spoke through the door for a little bit before a very tall, thin man stepped out, wearing a white tank top and some jeans splotched with white paint.
The two of them approached the car, Sarah climbing back in the passenger side.
"You two go on ahead. Did they tell you what this is all about, boy?", he asked, and Richard could see wrinkles around the seven-foot man's eyes when he spoke, indicating a lot of smiles.
"No, not yet", Richard responded, his window a little higher than the man's knees.
"Good", said the man, and Richard almost yelped as the man's head suddenly poked through the window. Richard thought the guy was just like a fucking giraffe, swooping down like that without even bending his legs.
"Go'wan in, lovebirds. By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.", and the man was chuckling as they pulled onward through the grass and hidden potholes.
When he said "lovebirds", both of the cringed and glanced at each other. They parked next to the dirt bike, and Sarah knocked twice and waited, glancing around nervously. After a few moments and someone knocking around inside, the door unlocked and a queer face appeared.
"Well, Sarah, stop looking so fidgety. It's unlady-like. And bring the boy with you.", said the man in his underwear, showing off his developing breasts, a beer gut, and his grey, dead looking skin. Sarah led the way, and when inside, the aroma of hours of marijuana use hit them like a brick. Another man was sleeping in an easy chair with torn upholstery. Foam peanuts were leaking out of the seams, and the man in the chair looked no better. One side of his brow was normal, and the other was swollen to nearly twice it's size. Blood had crusted down his cheek in a tiny stream that looked like an extended eyebrow.
The man standing before them looked bad, even in the dim light. His chest was covered in tight, nappy curls of greying hair, and it resembled office carpeting. His hair was white, combed over a shiny cap of bald skin on top. His cheeks were sunken in and stubbly. His biceps sagged and his triceps sagged even more. He looked like death, and smelled even worse.
"So, I guess Sarah gave you that letter I typed up. What'd you think?", he asked, sounding hoarse and pouring himself some cold coffee from his stained coffee pot.
"I figured I'd give it a try. It sounded a little like bullshit to me.", he replied nonchalantly, and Sarah whipped her head around and gave him the evil eye, her jaw hanging a bit slack.
But the man didn't get mad, he just chuckled and drank more cold, black coffee, "Yeah, I bet it did. But it's not. I want to hire you. You seem... qualified. And you can drive, so you're one up on Sarah here.", he said with a grin, draining his coffee mug and refilling it.
Richard just stood, looking around a bit at all the mess in the place and trying to place a smell he could sense. It wasn't the pot, but it smelled sour as hell. Maybe it was just this old rotten building, but the smell seemed more along the lines of a dog dying under the house. Sarah was fidgeting and stuffed her hands in her pockets. Her being so nervous around this old fart seemed amusing, but somehow it made Richard ill at ease.
"Well, son", the old guy went on, sipping at his fresh cup of not-so-fresh coffee, "I have a job for you if you want. It's an errand I need run, and soon. Sarah will be coming along, and you can do it as soon as you're available. I need you to pick up a package for me. Sarah will see that it remains unopened until I receive it. We can call it your application, if you want.".
The old guy had been pacing around, occasionally glancing at the man dozing in the recliner. He stopped now, turning to look at Richard in the eyes. He looked needy, and some part of Richard like helping the elderly, and another part like the ominous overtones of the assignment. He smiled a little and said, "Sure thing. Should we leave immediately? And what's the pay?"
The old guy grinned, showing all of his eight teeth, stained the same brown as Richard's Toyota Corolla, "How's about a hundred dollars? The most you've ever gotten for putting in an application, eh?"
Richard laughed politely, "Yeah, and is that for me and Sarah, or what?"
The man cocked his head to the side, "No, she's on a different payment plan. Don't worry about her. And she knows where you two are supposed to go, don't you, Sarah?"
She nodded, looking uncomfortable in her own skin, a light sweat all over her, and not just because of the warm, stale trailer home. Her gaze was fixed on the man's feet, which were bare and crusty, but she wasn't really looking at them. She just looked like a naughty child who expected a scolding.
"Well, go on then. I already told Herbert over there you two would work well together", he hooked a skinny thumb over toward the sleeping man with the swollen forehead, "Don't mind Herbert, Richard, he just passed out from the heat yesterday and bumped his noggin on the steps out front. Oh how rude of me, my name is Rex Frith. Run along, now."
"Come on", Sarah said, and walked out the door.
"Nice meeting you, Mr. Frith", said Richard, who wondered about Sarah's rudeness around her employer. It didn't really matter if your boss was creepy or not, you were supposed to be nice at least. Laugh at their jokes and whatnot.
She was already in the car, waiting, by the time he got in. Her chest was heaving lightly, her breath rasping in her throat. Her remembered the bruise above her belly button, and thought he may have made a connection. He wondered if he should ask, then remembered that he didn't really want to be her friend, and didn't care if he asked something that might offend.
"That bruise.", he said, "Is that why you were so weird back there?", Richard asked.
"No. I don't want to talk about it.", she said, in a cracking voice that suggested tears might come soon, "Let's just go. Take a right when we get to the street, and honk at Eli on the way out. You'd do good to make friends with him."
Eli was the human giraffe who was taking a crap when they arrived. Did all three weird men live together? Were they gay, or crack heads? The queerness of the situation made something in Richard's stomach feel weird, and he felt the pizza he had eaten before he left churning a little. He remembered the knife in his pocket, and figured he wouldn't be needing it, after all. He could smell Sarah's stench rising again, and wondered how long it had been since she last showered. her clothes weren't that dirty. She looked rough as hell, on the verge of crying, no make-up on, pimples in the corner of her nostril and in the corner of her mouth, and that wild fur scarf of blond hair billowing out from under her cap, covering her neck and part of her shoulders.
He honked at Eli, who was sitting on the hood of a totaled El Camino, smoking a cigarette. Eli waved, and Richard turned right onto N. Wharf St. |
Submission Name: The Parcel
