Among Other Things
Good evening!
I write to you from an old study spot of mine at my alma mater.
This is my second time coming here this week. It’s nice, quiet, familiar.
I feel like I’m back at school, which is comforting in its own way.
The place is empty. The sun is setting. My shoes are off. I have just drunk half of an energy drink and eaten a granola bar, both from the vending machine downstairs. I predict a late night.
I’m new to energy drinks.
I’m also new to short stories, especially fiction ones. I’ve read a whole lot of them, but writing them… different story.
But I’m trying new things.
I’ve been toying with this one since the start of April.
What started as an “I should write a quick story about being a DoorDash driver” has turned into a 16-page tale about some dude named Martin Jones.
I don’t know. It’s strange. It’s personal. It’s a little rough around the edges.
It’s a work in progress.
As always, thank you for reading.
& Let me know what you think, very open to feedback- this is new for me.
Among Other Things
by Annie Barber
On the third day of Spring Break, Martin Jones skipped his morning run. Because of this decision, he would end his evening crying in his 2006 Honda Accord, over the scent of mushroom risotto…
Among other things.
***
After spring break, Martin has 10 weeks left until he graduates from high school. He has applied to three colleges and has yet to hear back. This doesn’t tug at him so much. It tugs at his mother, however. She checks the mailbox every hour. After the postal carrier comes, she flips through the pile, shakes her head, and mutters, “He’s such a smart boy. I just don’t understand.” Sometimes she says these things to herself. Sometimes she says them to Martin, in the morning, while he eats his Cheerios.
Cheerio time is the first of Martin’s Spring Recess routines. He considers it sacred.
***
Before Martin applied to college, he would take his cereal alone at the kitchen table. He liked how the sunrise reflected on his bowl. He liked to stir his Cheerios in that warm glow. These days, his mother rises early, “Can’t sleep,” she says, and checks the mail. When she finds nothing, she enters the kitchen and makes herself a cup of coffee.
This morning, she came in shaking her head. “You’re such a bright kid,” she said to Martin. She flicked on the overhead light. “What is so wrong with them that they can’t get back to you?” Martin checked the time. 6:47 am. She looked to him for a response. He shrugged. “I just don’t understand it,” she said. Martin placed his spoon down and said. “They’ll reach out soon. I’ll get in somewhere.” He tried to think of something else to say, but nothing came to mind, so he returned his attention to his Cheerios, careful not to bump the edges of the bowl with his spoon.
***
Martin feels confident that a college will accept him. His grades are good. He ran cross country. He even played Juror #6 in the drama club’s rendition of “Twelve Angry Men. He feels that he has “demonstrated his range” to the college boards. That’s the phrase his drawing teacher, Mrs Lennox, had used. She said to his class, “That’s why we take art, so that we may demonstrate range on our college applications.” Martin found that funny. Sometimes, she played Joni Mitchel and hummed along. He found that funny, too.
***
The week before spring break, as Martin finished up a charcoal self-portrait, Mrs Lennox snuck up behind him and yelled, “Bah!” His hand shook, which blurred the ear he was shading. She looked at it and said, “Leave it like that. You’re talented, Martin, but there’s too much calculation here. You would benefit from loosening up a little.” She reached her finger down, smudged the other ear, and then walked away humming. Martin looked at the new ears for a while. He didn’t mind the smudges, really. He recognized the tune she was humming, but couldn’t quite place the name. That, he minded.
***
Today is the third day of Spring Break. This morning, Martin Jones stood in his mudroom and watched the raindrops hit the window. He tried to come up with the name of the song. It was really tugging at him. He thought about emailing Mrs Lennox, but concluded it would be better to ask her after the break. He planned to run this morning, but decided to skip it. He didn’t want to get wet.
***
The past two days had been nice- sunny and dry. Martin had woken up early, eaten a bowl of Cheerios, gone for a run, and then driven to his favorite coffee shop, Ronnie’s, for Second Breakfast. Second Breakfast at Ronnie’s is usually a Saturday activity, but Martin has implemented a new special morning routine for his week off. First, he eats Cheerios. Then he goes for a run. After the run, he showers and then drives over to Ronnie’s.
***
Martin has been going to Ronnie’s for years, but has yet to meet a Ronnie, Ronald, or a Ron. This tugs at him.
***
A lot of things tug at Martin, things he can’t explain: heart-shaped Cheerios, off-white paint, the idea of a femoral artery. He doesn’t like the idea of so much power that close to his balls. I don’t know. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t like to talk about it. Let’s carry on.
***
Martin is a regular at Ronnie’s. They know his order: a small coffee and a bagel sandwich. He gets it on an everything bagel with bacon, egg, and cheese. He adds a scoop of chive cream cheese and a tomato slice. There’s a $1.50 upcharge. He’s happy to pay it. It’s a damn good sandwich, he thinks. Martin finds great satisfaction in his routine. Up early. Cheerios. Run. Shower. Ronnie’s. Bagel sandwich.Who could ask for more?
***
At Ronnie’s, Martin keeps himself busy. He brings a book, a sketchbook, and a notepad. After sitting, he tries to read, which he considers an acceptable activity, but usually ends up eavesdropping on the customers around him, which he considers to be less acceptable.
Still, he likes to jot down stand-out phrases in his notepad. He justifies this behavior as part of an art project he is working on.
More on that.
***
Martin envisions a drawing of a coffee shop scene with booths, mugs, and bagels galore. He pictures caricatured customers with big heads and wide-open mouths. There will be word bubbles coming out of the wide-open mouths. These word bubbles will be full of dialogue. Sometimes the sentences are clear. Other times, they run over each other, crash into other sentences and bubbles. Some words you have to squint to read. Some will remain illegible, despite your squinting. Martin is hoping to collect all of the phrases from real life. He has twenty or so in his notepad so far. He is hoping for at least thirty. Thirty is a good number, he feels. Some of his favorite lines that he’s collected are “It would be in your best interest to not swallow that fork, Donny,” and “Bing bong! It’s like bing bing bong, man. You know the one.”
***
Today, Martin arrived at Ronnie’s earlier than he was used to. He skipped his run but carried on with the rest of his routine. He supposed he didn’t really need to shower, but the last time he skipped it, he felt lousy all day, so he took one. That’s okay. He grabbed his favorite booth by the window and didn’t feel like a dodo for hogging it since there were three others open. He told himself that he would get up if three nice-looking families came in.
At the counter, he ordered his BEC with extras, paid, and sat back down. He started to take out his book, notebook, and pen, paused to glance at the door to check for three nice families. Noting none, he carried on. Not a dodo. He reminded himself. One of the workers, not a Ronnie, brought over his bagel sandwich. He took a few bites and tried to read his book, The Grapes of Wrath, for his College Composition class. But he couldn’t get into it, and his mind began to wander.
Uh oh.
***
Sometimes when Martin’s mind wanders, he feels that something at his core has rotted away. He feels that there is someone else inside of him, someone sinister.
Martin Jones has a squatter.
This squatter oozes a perpetual rottenness. He calls out to Martin when he has too much time to think or when he is alone for too long. The squatter is depraved. He feels that Martin is depraved, too. He calls him names: pervert, freak, monster.
Among other things.
***
Martin has a system for neutralizing the squatter. When the thoughts arise, he picks up his notebook and begins to sketch. He always ends up drawing a picture of a wrinkly old man with a mole on his left cheek. He is not sure who the old man is. Maybe it’s Ronnie, he thinks.
***
Today, while trying to read The Grapes of Wrath, Martin grew bored and directed his attention to the table next to him. There sat a nice-looking couple. The man, a thirty-year-oldish guy, told his girlfriend about a dream he had the night before. “Okay, so there was this baby- this huge-headed baby in the driver’s seat of a car, a Volkswagen Bug, I think, and it kept asking me, ‘Where should I park the car, man?’ He just kept calling me man and asking where to park.” The guy laughed and shook his head. His girlfriend said, “That’s super weird.” Martin wrote down, “Where should I park the car, man?” and drew a big-headed baby driving a buggy. He drew it quickly and turned to a blank page. “You big fucking pervert,” the squatter said. He felt that perpetual rottenness. He quickly picked up the pen and drew.
He looked down. Surprise. Old wrinkled mole man. Martin finished shading the mole, flipped to a new page, and returned his attention to his sandwich. The squatter was neutralized for now. I shouldn’t have skipped my run, he thought.
Martin’s routine is very important to him, his run especially.
He usually runs with his friend Dan. They go to the park near Dan’s house. There’s a path that loops around the park and through the woods, about four and a half miles. Martin’s favorite part of the run is the hill at the end. With its steep incline, he hits the slope hard, burns up the rest of his energy until his legs burn and his lungs ache. After he meets the peak, he races down, can’t stop, can’t slow down, faster, faster, out of control, falling forward, legs moving on their own accord until he reaches the bottom, where he collapses on the grass. If it’s nice and sunny, He and Dan will sprawl out there for a while and soak up the sun. Martin likes the feeling of the blood pumping in his head, behind his ears. Dun Dun Dun. His thoughts quiet down. Dun dun dun dun. He can’t get enough!
Afterwards, they grab breakfast at Ronnie’s. “Great run.” One will say. “For real, man,” says the other. Their friendship is not very deep, but Dan gets as much out of running as Martin does. He likes the Dun Dun Dun Dun. We’re all chasing the noise. Nobody can get enough.
A few weeks back, Dan twisted his ankle. He’s had to call out of the last few Saturdays. Martin’s been hitting the slope alone. Which is fine, really.
***
Martin doesn’t mind being alone. He likes it, especially in the morning, but sometimes he thinks about making a greater effort to socialize. Like this morning, after seeing the man with the big-headed baby dream laughing along with his girlfriend, he considered inviting a friend to eat with him. But then he worried that he would get caught up in his head and end up drawing his mole man. This is what happened last time with his friend Megan.
More on that.
***
Last year, Megan and Martin had acted together in “Twelve Angry Men.” Martin thought Megan played the most beautiful man, but he never admitted that to her. Martin had concluded long ago that he was much better at playing things platonic. Martin is very good at concluding things. Some might even call him a pro.
Martin and Megan got along nicely at rehearsal. They would whisper little things to each other backstage, like “Try not to trip over Danza’s shoes,” and “I wonder if water comes out of the top of those things.”
I should explain.
Mr Danza was the head of the drama club and had directed Twelve Angry Men. He was well known for his dramatic flair and frequently wore outfits that were pretty “out there.” The shoes they were whispering about were these big bulbous things that resembled two blue whales. The laces wrapped around what looked like a waterspout. Danza called them his baby blues.
So Martin and Megan joked about Danza’s baby blues, among other things. They were very friendly, always messing with each other. The last night of the performance, during one of the most serious scenes, Megan winked at Martin. This caused him to blush, of course, and forget his line. She mouthed it for him. After the show, he found her backstage and quickly asked if she’d like to join him at Ronnie’s the following Sunday. She said yes. He was thrilled.
***
By Sunday morning, however, Martin’s thrill had devolved into a proper panic. Because of this, he skipped his run and took a shower. It didn’t feel quite right, so he took another, which caused him to be late. Megan greeted him with a hug. More panic. He ordered his BEC with extras. They were out of everything bagels. He got plain instead. Once he sat down, he felt that his chair was too hard on his tailbone, harder than normal. He shifted back and forth. He could feel Megan watching him.
She asked, “Have you heard back from any schools yet?”
“Nope.”
“What do you think you will study?”
He didn’t know what he wanted to study. Still, he tried to think of something cool to say, and then his brain went dark, and the squatter in his head woke up and started oozing out that perpetual rottenness, and then he started feeling like he shouldn’t even be there, and then he started thinking, What am I even doing? And then too much time had gone by, and he still hadn’t answered her, and she was looking at him, and she was the most beautiful angry man and he was just a big pervert who couldn’t answer a normal fucking question.
So he turned the question back on her.
Journalism. She wanted to study journalism. He nodded, said “cool,” and asked no follow-up questions. She paused for a second, then brought up the play, and cracked a joke at Mr Danza. She smiled. Martin tried to smile but ended up biting his tongue instead.
“Ow. ”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. I just bit my tongue.”
“Oh…Are you okay”
“Yeah. Sorry. I don’t know. Sorry. I just feel like I need something to do with my hands,” He fumbled in his bag, pulled out his notebook. “Don’t mind me. “ He drew his mole man. Megan pulled the pad over to her side of the table.“Who is it?” she asked. Martin watched this beautiful girl looking at his pervy old man drawing. I shouldn’t be here. He felt sick. He said, “I’m not sure.”
The conversation felt off after that, and Megan eventually left to meet other friends. She didn’t reach out again. Martin concluded that he’s probably poor company.
He also concluded that he would never skip his run again.
***
Martin looked around the coffee shop. The couple had left. It was quiet. He felt uneasy, which was abnormal for him at this time of the day. His uneasiness usually comes later in the day, as the sun sets.
There’s something about the sunset that flips a switch in Martin. As dusk settles, he takes special notice of the way his clothes rub against his skin. They make him itch. Take deep breaths, they say, so he breathes in, but the air feels gritty and stale. Get some fresh air, they say, so he goes outside, but it’s cold. He considers running at night but can’t handle the goosebumps on his legs, the way chill seems to permeate right down to his femur.
So Martin Jones had to come up with a new plan for the evenings. He started delivering DoorDash orders. His first drop off was two Fridays ago. That night, he delivered 5 orders and made about eighty-nine bucks. DoorDash has been good for Martin. It gets him out of the house. He is putting the money towards a new set of tires.
More on that.
***
Martin punctured his back left tire sometime last week. He heard the hiss one morning as he bent down to check his shoelaces. He figured the hole was fresh as he hadn’t noticed it during yesterday’s shoelace check. He turned his watch to see the time, 7:20! No time to dilly dally.Martin went off to school.
***
After school, Martin had more time to dilly and dally. He took the car to the garage around the corner, Merv’s. Martin goes to Merv’s for all of his car concerns. He has personally met a Merv, who works there. Merv is not short for Mervin in Merv’s case. Martin had to ask.
Merv, not short for Mervin, told Martin. “No good, kid. The puncture’s in the shoulder. Can’t patch it. You’ll need new tires.” He asked Martin if he’d like to order a new set. Martin declined, concluding that he could nurse it a while. There he goes with that concluding again.
Merv wished him luck, filled up his tire, and sent him on his way. Martin stopped by The Home Depot and purchased a cordless inflator. He has to fill up his tire three to four times a day. That’s alright. The leak has been slow.
Martin knew his system wasn’t sustainable, but he couldn’t afford tires. He checked his bank account after purchasing the inflator. $108.34. Martin started his first shift as a DoorDash driver that night.
Dire for tire, Martin for hire. There is no fire, just a hole in his tire! He came up with that one as he pulled out of The Home Depot parking lot.
He was proud of it.
***
Martin has door-dashed several nights since then and made about $230. He likes it. He feels it’s a good addition to his routine. He uses the GPS on his phone to get around. The directions are in kilometers. Martin is not sure why, and he doesn’t bother to change it. He just leaves it as is and makes do. This doesn’t tug at Martin. Isn’t that something?
Unfortunately, Martin has a very minimal understanding of kilometers. He has to think of a 5k every time and convert from there. Okay, if five kilometers is 3.1 miles, then 2 kilometers is… He frequently misses the turn. He is late for many pickups.
***
Martin may be late to his pickups, but he communicates well with the customers. He sends, “Just picked up your order. Headed your way now.” Sometimes, he will add a smiley face if he deems it appropriate. He deems it appropriate based on their name and what they ordered.
That’s all he sees: first name, last initial, and their food. Not enough,he thinks.
Yet he makes do with minimal information. He likes to make up stories about his customers. Take Robert G, for example, who last Friday ordered a large pepperoni pizza and four Cokes. On the way to Robert’s house, Martin pictured him as this big, tough finance guy with two young kids and a rather large wife. He imagined him to have a large pot belly and a serious case of male-pattern baldness. The Robert G that came to the door was incredibly skinny, gaunt even, probably in his late 60s, with a full head of hair and a dainty wife. He caught a glimpse of her through the window. Come on!
After Robert G came Sheila P, who ordered the California roll and iced green tea. Martin had predicted Sheila would live with her elderly mother and their three cats. Friday nights, he thinks, her mother goes to bingo at the community center, and good Miss Sheila and the cats get the house all to themselves.
He envisioned her watching Jeopardy and petting her favorite cat, a black cat with a little white tuft under its chin. Martin never got to check his prediction because Sheila requested that he leave the order at the door.
***
Martin finds that it’s always the same drop-off instruction: “Leave it at the door. Leave it at the door, please. Leave it at the door, but ring the doorbell as you leave.” Ring the doorbell….as I leave? Sheila’s request to leave it at the door fit the majority, but come on, lady. Put that imaginary cat down and go have a ten-second interaction with Martin! You need it. He needs it. We all need it, damnit.
***
Martin was sick and tired of leaving orders at the door. He wanted to know how his predictions line up. Sometimes he lingers in his car for a moment, but he thinks that the customers peek out the curtains and wait until he drives off to come to the door. Sometimes he catches a glimpse in his rearview mirror. This backwards glance tends to wake up the squatter in his mind who dwells on what this glance means precisely, and what it reveals about Martin, and where he falls on the normal to perverted scale, and what it means to be normal and what it means to be perverted.
Martin doesn’t bring his notebook in the car with him, so he is unable to neutralize the squatter, but luckily, DoorDash does it for him. There’s another order ringing away, waiting for him to pick it up. Ding ding ding! Martin is so quick to accept!
***
Martin has delivered several meals by now and noted that single orders hold the majority: one name, one entree, one drink. He drops off these solo meals all over town, once to a pair of neighbors. Bizarre coincidence, really. They ordered from the same restaurant, around the same time. Lived in the same apartment complex. He dropped off two meals to two units just one floor apart. He wondered if he should have told them. Maybe they could have eaten together, he thinks. He didn’t have a chance, though. They both requested that he leave it at the door.
***
After the neighbors came, Rebecca F, who lived in a townhouse near the shopping district. She lived in one of those apartments half a story below ground. As Martin approached the door, he saw a woman through the window. He started to wave, but she ducked down and turned the light off. She doesn’t know I can see her, he thought. He saw her lying on her stomach, looking at the DoorDash app. He left the order at the door, clicked “Complete delivery,” went back to his car, and sent her a text that said “Your food is on the doorstep. Thanks!” She wrote back, “Thank you! Have a good night!” Before he drove away, he looked up to see that the curtain was now shut. He couldn’t get the image of her out of his head, sprawled out on the floor in the dark. “Thank you! Have a good night!” Bah!
***
As the uneasiness washed over Martin this morning at Ronnie’s, he thought of Rebecca F. Then he considered DoorDash, but it was too early in the day. There won’t be enough orders. So Martin finished his coffee and headed home. The rain had let up, but the sky remained gray. His mother greeted him in the kitchen. She was flipping through the mail. “Any word?” he asked. She shook her head. He went upstairs to take a nap, woke up an hour later, and made himself a second bowl of Cheerios. He was typically a one-and-done guy when it came to his Cheerios. Today was all messed up. He should have just run in the rain.
***
Martin’s mother went to the grocery store. Martin dillied and dallied, paced his room, doodled a little, thought about emailing Mrs Lennox to ask what song she was humming last week. It still tugged at him. When his mother came back, they cooked dinner together.
It was a throw-it-all-together-into-chili sort of night. Martin cut up onions and peppers and minced a few cloves of garlic. His mother seasoned ground beef and pan-fried it on the stove. Martin stirred a can of tomato sauce and chicken broth together in a big pot. His mother added the veggies, meat, and seasonings, threw in a can of black beans, and left it to simmer.
Martin and his mother dillied and dallied until the kitchen air was properly aromatic.
***
Martin made a bowl for his mother and scooped another for himself. He sat down across from her at the table. She took a spoonful, blew on it, took a bite, and asked, “How’s your drawing coming along?”Martin stirred his chili with a spoon, took it out, set it on his napkin, and answered, “Pretty okay. I’m still in the planning stage. Hoping to start soon,” He picked his spoon back up. She continued, “I talked to the neighbor today, Lottie, you know her…red house three doors down. She got a new puppy. Little weiner dog. Stupid cute.” Spoon down. “Yeah, Lottie. That’s nice,” Martin said. He waited. She went back to eating. He did too.
***
After dinner, Martin collected the dishes and began to wash them in the sink. His mother said, “Thanks, kiddo,” before heading upstairs to shower. She paused at the landing and called down, “Want to watch a movie tonight?” Martin hesitated a moment and then said, “Sure.”
***
But Martin wasn’t sure. The sun was making its way past the horizon, darkening the already clouded sky. It looked like it might rain again. Martin’s skin felt sticky. He could feel the chili digesting in his stomach. He considered the process, all those juices sloshing around in there, excretions and glands and whatnot. He imagined all of the blood circulating in there, all that red, rushing around his arteries. He thought about it passing through his femur, up past his balls. God damn femur!
Martin had to go.
He left three dirty dishes in the sink, yelled to his mother that he was going to DoorDash for a few hours, “Rain check on the movie?” he asked. “No worries. Drive safe, kiddo!” “Will do!” Martin grabbed his keys, and he was off!
***
A couple of hours had passed, and Martin Jones was having a grand ole time. Wednesday night was busier than he had expected. He had made 103 dollars and 82 cents. New tires are close, he thought. He could practically smell the rubber! He pulled into the next restaurant’s parking lot, humming along to the radio. Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” was playing. This! This was the song! Yes, yes, yes! Martin was elated.
The restaurant he had just arrived at was called Gino’s. It was a nice Mom-and-Pop- style family place. Martin was feeling particularly giddy over his next drop off. He filled up his tire in the parking lot and fantasized about Linda L. He had concocted quite the fantasy this time.
***
Here is what he saw on his phone:
Order for Linda L. 2 Items: 1x Mushroom Risotto 1x Caesar Salad: Choice of Protein: Salmon. Dressing: On the side
***
Martin predicted that Linda L, short for Linda Lamborguini, ofcourse, was the real deal.
There were no holes in her tires, among other things.
He pictured her seated at the kitchen table, under dimmed lights, enjoying a glass of wine. The wine would be red and dry. She would be alone. She would wear her glasses on the bridge of her nose. She only wears glasses when she reads, he thinks.
The sunset would not unsettle her. There would be no nervous mothers around telling her how smart she was. No doodles of mole men or big-headed babies in her notebooks.
When she created a routine, she stuck to it.
When she sat down to read her book, she would really read it.
***
Linda had selected “Hand order to customer” for her drop-off instructions. Martin would not have to leave it at the door this time. This enthralled him.
This also made him want to cancel the order, delete the app, throw his phone out of the window, and run it over with his leaky tire.
***
Martin screwed the valve cap back on his tire, placed the compressor into his trunk, and headed into the restaurant. He was practically skipping. The hostess greeted him. “Eating in or taking out?” she asked. “Just picking up a DoorDash, actually…for Linda Lamb- Linda L,” he corrected himself. She went back to the kitchen, grabbed his bag, handed it to him, and said, “There you are. Drive safe.”
Martin thanked her, said,” Will do,” and headed for the door. Then he paused, turned back, and asked, “Hey! Is there actually a Gino that works here?” The host laughed. “Yeah. He’s the owner and head chef.” “Fantastic!” Martin exclaimed.
***
Martin stuck Linda L’s order in the backseat, considered the risotto, turned on the front seat warmer, placed the bag on the front seat, considered the Caesar salad, took the salad out, and put it in the back seat.
He opened up the DoorDash app and sent Linda a message, “Just picked up your order. Should be over in 15 minutes or so.” He hovered his thumb over the send button and then added a smiley face. He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, put the car in drive, turned up the volume on Joni Mitchell, and pulled out of the parking lot, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He was on the way!
***
At a red light, Martin’s mind worked itself into a frenzy. Linda Lamborighini! Linda! Linda! Linda. What are you like, Linda? Married? Kids? Hobbies? He noted the time: 8:15. Linda eats late. He wondered what she did for work. Maybe she’s a nurse, just getting off a twelve-hour shift. She would have showered by now, settled in, put on PJs-
No- She wouldn’t come to the door in pjs.
Maybe sweatpants.
Maybe a bathrobe.
Fuck.
Oh, Linda L.
Oh, Martin.
***
Another red light. Another frenzy.
Does she hang around town? Has she been to Ronnie’s? Maybe he’s seen her, swiped a sentence from her for his notebook. Maybe she was the girlfriend of the man with the big-headed baby dream. He hoped not. He hoped she was single. Martin missed the turn. The GPS redirected him: “Turn left in 1.2 kilometers.” Martin thought, Shit, okay, well, if a 5k is 3.1 miles, then 1.2 kilometers is… “Oh, to hell with it,” he muttered before making an abrupt U-turn.
Why wait?
***
Martin made a wide turn onto Linda L’s street, nearly hitting a mailbox. He was sweating a good deal now. His left hand gripped the steering wheel hard as he put the car in park. He fixed his hair in the mirror and opened his phone to check Linda’s address. And below that, bolded was that beautiful “Hand order to customer.” He was a few houses away. He spotted one car in the driveway. No garage. Her curtains were shut. He took a deep breath, grabbed the salad from the back, and reunited it with the mushroom risotto, checking their temperatures. Still cold. Still hot. Nice.
He wanted to make Linda happy.
He walked slowly down her driveway, which was difficult, given his nerves. He was trying to decide the most casual way to knock. He was thinking three brief thumps or maybe the classic dun-dun-dundun- dun. Too many options, he thought. He lingered on the stoop, wiped his forehead, and took three deep breaths. He went with dun-dun-dundun-dun.
A few minutes passed. No answer.
Linda, where are you?
He sent her a message: “I’m outside with your food. Thanks!” He rang the doorbell this time.
Ding. He looked down at his phone. “Great. Thanks! You can just leave it at the door.”
You can just leave it at the door. Leave it at the door. Leave it. At. The. Door. You can just leave it at the door. I can just leave it at the door. For sure. For sure, for sure. Cool. Yeah. Cool. Cool. Cool.
Martin Jones put down Linda L’s order, hit “Complete delivery,” and walked back to his car.
***
Martin is back at the car now. He looks back at Linda’s stoop. The food is gone. It begins to rain, of course. Martin sits down in the driver’s seat and watches the drops race down the window. He picks one drop to win it all. A neighboring drop absorbs his drop at the last second. Cool. Cool. Cool. Martin leans his head back and feels the passenger seat with his right hand. It’s still warm. The air smells like mushroom risotto.
He thinks that he should check his tire, that it’s probably low. Then he starts thinking about the cost of new tires, and the money in his bank account, and the cost of college, and his mother checking the mail for acceptance letters. “You’re such a smart boy. I don’t understand.” He thinks of Megan, her smile, her dimples, the way she says “Mr Danza,” the look she gave him when he couldn’t answer her question.
He thinks of Dan, his twisted ankle, “Great run, man.” “For real, man,” Of Ronnie’s, his bagel sandwich, the man with the big-headed baby dream, his notebook, his mole man. He thinks of Mrs Lennox smudging his charcoal ears. “Loosen up a little,” she said.
He thinks about Sheila P and Robert G, Merv, Ronnie, and Gino, all the real and imagined people, the fake cats, the single orders. He pictures Rebecca F, sprawled out on the floor, hiding from him in the dark. “Thank you! Have a good night,” she said. “Leave it at the door,” she said. He thinks about Linda. He thinks about leaping out of the car, ringing the doorbell, running away, jumping into the bushes, waiting for her, watching, catching a glimpse, needing to catch a glimpse, to know if she’s how he pictured, needing to see that he’s not crazy. “But you are crazy,” the squatter says, “You’re a big, crazy, awful, perverted, unlovable monster! Accept it. Accept it. Accept it.” There’s that perpetual rottenness, that forever filthy feeling in his stomach, in his head, in his chest, his arms, his legs, his femur, always there, always tugging. Fuck. Fuck! Shake it off, Martin. Shake it off.
***
He needs to go, needs to draw his moleman, needs to pick up another order, needs to run, needs to feel the blood in his head, behind his ears. That Dun Dun Dun Dun Dun. He starts the engine and puts the car in drive. Something feels wrong. The tire. He parks again, opens the door, and looks back. The tire needs air. Of course, it needs air. Martin goes to get up, grabs the door handle, and then…
He pauses.
The tire is hissing away back there. Linda is chewing her food somewhere across the street. The squatter in Martin’s head is screaming away.
He lets go of the door handle.
Martin sets his head down in his hands and weeps. Soft at first and then loud, ugly, and snotty. Sloppy tears roll down his cheeks. His face burns. His breath is ragged. The air is gritty and stale. His clothes feel wrong. His skin itches. He’s got goosebumps. His head hurts. His femur is on fire.
He lets it burn.
***
After a while, Martin’s breath returns to normal. He dries his eyes and steps out of the car. The rain has stopped. He grabs the inflator from the truck, clamps it on his tire, and holds down the lever.
This isn’t sustainable. He thinks.
But it gets him home.
