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rainbowfic2015-08-04 12:16 am
starphotographs) wrote in rainbowfic2015-08-04 12:16 am
Fake Blood Red, Folly 7
Name: starphotographs
Story: Universe B
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Summer Carnival), Canvas, Portrait, Saturation, Novelty Beads (http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5zifrTnXL1r6iatxo1_500.jpg)
Characters: Satchel (POV), some Frankie, half a town’s worth of one-offs.
Colors: Fake Blood Red, Folly 7 (Of course it’s edible!)
Word Count: 5,200ish
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: A typical night at work for the young Satchel Lennox.
Note: I’ll cop to being inspired by This hilarious post! (…And if that’s too many Supplies/Styles, I’ll just lop off a few that it ended up being by accident.)
30 Minutes or Less
Oh, night, night, night, night, night! Come, come, come, come, come! ...I didn't write it.
It was the worst time of the day, that dead zone between a fun afternoon and an exciting night on the job. I was bored out of mind, waiting for the sun to set, sitting by the window. Because even the chance of seeing something interesting happening down on the sidewalk was more appealing than anything that could possibly be going on in the house.
All that was going on in the house was the television droning out that bottom-of-the-barrel programming they relegate to this part of the day, and my brother droning out parroted telemarketer scripts, stopping only to cough or sniffle or try to complain to me, even though it was obvious I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy looking down at my watch, looking out the window, willing the sun to set, looking back at my watch only to find out that it’s been less than five minutes. Scream internally, and repeat.
Frankie finally sets his phone on the table, then sinks into the grody couch.
“Satchel?”
“Hrm?”
“My head is full of crud.”
Believe me, I can hear.
“That sucks. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah…”
I wasn’t sure what he was agreeing to, and I didn’t really care. Honestly, I love him, but right now, he’s a whiny ball of germs and snot, and all I want is to get the fuck away from him for a few hours. There’s something about living with a person that makes everything they’ve ever done seem absolutely insufferable. But, the thought of us living apart was worse. So I spend a good number of my evenings delivering pizzas. Which isn’t without its own problems, but at least they’re different problems.
Finally, my watch shows the right time, and I snap into action.
“Well, I gotta get to work! Feel better, alright?”
“Okay.”
Frankie. Dude. What the hell are you agreeing with?
I decided it didn’t matter, and clomped downstairs to the pizza shop to start my night.
Don't give me the evil eye! Now I know why some animals eat their young.
The first delivery of the night was to some young single mom and her kid. Which wasn’t surprising, because it usually is. It’s not the same mom and kid or anything. There’s just something about that demographic. They all want their goddamn six PM pizza, and they want it now, even though their house is in goddamn chaos.
This particular kid was running around in Groucho glasses, which was apparently some kind of issue. The mom did not want her wearing them in front of the pizza guy. I couldn’t even get a word in edgewise to say that the Pizza Guy didn’t give a fuck and wouldn’t remember them in an hour.
“Take those off, you look like a fool!”
All that did was make the kid crack up laughing at the word “fool.”
The mom gave me a long-suffering look. I just shrugged.
This is your own damage, lady.
I had enough problems of my own, without finding a child in a fake nose distasteful on top of everything else.
When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw!... I don't know either.
The next delivery was to one of those middle-of-nowhere addresses, where you don’t even think of people living, let alone doing things like ordering themselves a pizza. But, they did. Pretty frequently, actually.
Then I noticed that this particular out-of-the-way address looked familiar. Actually, I was pretty sure I knew where it was. I hoped it so, at least. Because if I was delivering to who I thought I was, it would be a return to one of my favorite customers.
And sure enough, I entered the woods, and turned down that familiar gravel road.
The person who lives at the end of that road is an old guy who sells huge carved wooden things. He has a barn full of tools, and an extra fridge in that barn, just for beer.
I kind of wanted to be him when I grew up.
Also, he’s a falconer.
I’m not sure he remembered me, even after I said I remembered him, but he let a hawk sit on my shoulder. Which was so cool that I didn’t even notice her talons were sticking into me. Not until I got back in the car and realized I was bleeding on my shirt.
We're always much more talented after you've had a few drinks.
I had a whole fat stack of pizzas for a house on the outskirts of what I’d consider downtown. What I found when I reached the address was a bunch of young people, late teens to thirties, I’d guess, sitting in lawn chairs in a half-circle on the driveway, cheering on a guy who was playing with some devil sticks. Ice clinked in their glasses, and some were cracking beers. A few of them already seemed pretty blotto. The biggest can of beer belonged to the guy with the devil sticks, and every time they fell, he’d grab it and tilt his head all the way back, taking huge gulps. The can was cold enough to sweat. Just looking at it made me thirsty.
By the time I managed to get their attention, the original devil stick guy had plopped down in a chair, panting, and the sticks were taken up by a very drunk girl, who was demonstrating a surprising amount of control for someone who was laughing hysterically with unbridled glee.
She let the sticks fall in midair when she realized there was pizza to be had, and everyone followed her, digging in hungrily. Except for one guy, who hung back to give me a curiously large tip, and insist I stay and party with them. I apologized, and said I had to get back to work.
With a definite pang of regret, I turned to leave.
The regret only increased when I glanced behind me, and saw a topless woman spinning poi, lightning fast and unafraid of fire.
That guy right there was laughing at me!
I went back to the shop for new orders and more pizzas multiple times in a night, but it was usually uneventful.
This time was different. There was an angry man shouting and banging his fist on the counter. His pizza, apparently, had arrived at his home all mangled. I didn’t remember this guy, but he sure thought he remembered me.
“…You! What’s wrong with you? What the fuck did you do to my pizza!?”
“Um… Nothing? I didn’t deliver to you, dude?”
He clenched his jaw.
“You didn’t deliver to me?”
I realized he was a fucking dumbass, and adjusted my tone accordingly.
“That’s what I said.”
But, in his world, I delivered to him, and he couldn’t be convinced otherwise.
“Don’t lie! If you didn’t deliver my pizza, who did!? You see any other delivery boys here!?”
“No, I don’t. They’re all out making deliveries.”
What started as nervous laughter gave way to full-on cackling at the absurdity of the situation. I did my best to hold it in, but some of it escaped as a stupid snort. That made the disgruntled customer go ballistic. He leaned over the counter and started screaming for the manager.
“That piece of shit just laughed at me! Will somebody fuckin’ do something, already!? And what about my refund!? …The delivery boy laughed at me!”
He was trying to complain about two things at once, which wasn’t working out so well. I snorted again. Then the dam broke. I had to sit down. So I sat right there on the tiles, laughing until my ribs hurt.
Eventually, my boss did emerge from his cave. And he rewarded the angry man with his refund.
But, he also turned to me and muttered, “sorry about that.”
See, my boss kind of hates me. Most authority figures do, because they know I don’t respect them, and that makes them want to back over me with their car. Or whatever. But, my boss admitted I didn’t deserve a verbal smackdown for being a smartass. So, all in all, it was a victory.
Back up so you don't run into your ego.
Sometimes, when we sold someone a pizza, they’d waste a bunch of time trying to sell something to me.
The wannabe salesman, in this case, was trying to sell me some kind of shady vitamin supplement. I refused his offer, because I was worried it might make my head explode. Also, I get enough vitamins from food, which I generally enjoy more than taking big old horse pills.
I wanted him to just take his goddamn pizza and go back in the house. The dark, sinister-looking house, with a saggy brown couch, a shadeless lamp, and a dusty picture of an impaled Jesus hanging right in the middle of the living room. And that was just what I managed to see through the front door. Who knew what was lurking inside, between the old pizza boxes and giant bottles of pills.
The crazy motherfucker wouldn’t let up. This was his system. It was patented. Or would be, once the patent office got around to looking at it. He couldn’t currently make any promises about the patent, but he could promise that it would change my life.
“Look, I’m on the clock here. Will you let me go if I tell you I’ll think about it?”
He did.
He also gave me his poorly-designed business card instead of a tip, which made me want to smash his head through a window.
Do not try this at home! Yeah, go over to a friend's house.
I ripped up the ugly business card and threw it out on the highway. Then I delivered a large cheese pizza to three fourteen-year-old boys, who were skateboarding on some kind of rickety, but impressive, plywood structure in someone’s backyard. One of them had a bloody knee, and they were all yelling about a nail. A lot of the drama centered around whether family members should be called, but the bloodied kid kept ranting about how he came over to the host-child’s house to skateboard because his mom was neurotic and wouldn’t let him.
This all sort of reminded me of my own mom, who thought the benign heart murmur Frankie had as a kid was one of those deadly heart defects you always hear about people being born with.
I felt bad for bloody-knee kid, so he was the kid to whom I handed the pizza. It was the least I could do. He’d get first pick, and might even get that slice with the brown bubble on it that everyone always fights over.
Then they all started panicking about how they hadn’t considered the tip when they pooled their money to order a pizza. One of the kids, probably the host, told me not to go anywhere, and bolted into the house. The other two explained all sorts of stuff about the plywood thing and skateboarding in general, which was pretty interesting.
The kid who went in the house emerged with a full roll of quarters, plopped it in my hand, and gave me an affirming nod.
“For the arcade. But you can’t, like, not tip the pizza guy, so you can have ‘em”
Little dude, your mom raised you right.
My biological clock is ticking and I want babies now!
It was never the late-night orders you had to watch out for. They were usually a little weird, but polite enough about it. Actually, most late-night pizza customers remind me of people I could be friends with. Weird people are my people.
No, the really fucked up person was always just after dusk. And tonight was no exception.
This time, it was a prim fortyish woman, who lived all by herself in a nice neighborhood.
But, according to her, she wasn’t going to be alone for much longer. She was planning for kids, you see. She just had to find the right sperm donor, you see.
She commented on my height. Also, apparently, I have a very symmetrical face. Then she wanted to know if I considered myself an intelligent person.
I didn’t like where this was going, so I handed her the pizza, took the money, and burned rubber.
The whole way back to the pizza shop, I wondered what kind of cruel harpy would wish being six-foot-five on her poor hypothetical children.
Oh, yeah, that was much less totally pathetic.
When I got back to the shop, my boss told me there was an order from one of the apartments upstairs. This was something people did all the time.
Shitty, lazy people.
Then I saw the room number.
Oh, fuck you sideways.
I went upstairs, to deliver a pizza to my own fucking apartment, because my shit-for-brains brother thought this was a good idea.
When I got there, Frankie was still glued to the couch. Actually, at some point during the evening, he must have dragged himself up to get an extra blanket and put on his robe. At least he seemed happy to see me.
“Hey Satchel!”
He coughed into one of the millions of used tissues that orbited the couch like trash asteroids. Trashteroids.
“Franks’n’Beans. Hey. Um… You do know you can just walk downstairs and get a pizza, right?”
Frankie shrugged. At least, I think that was a shrug. He might have just been trying to further mire himself in the sofa cushions.
“Yeah, I know. But I have a fever. I didn’t feel like getting up.”
“…You’re just high on cough syrup.”
“Maybe a little of that, too…” He brightened up instantly. “…Hey, you wanna stay and have some pizza?”
God, he was pathetic. That, and I liked him more than any of the other bozos I had to fetch things for. I had a hard time saying no.
“Franks, I’m at work.”
“I know, but…”
“…But, I can’t hang out here eating pizza all night. I’d get in trouble.”
Now he looked genuinely wounded. But, I’d get over that. Hell, he was already over it. He tore into a slice of pizza, and got back to whatever weird crap he’d been watching.
“Okay. See you tonight!”
“Later, kiddo.”
Performance art! I love performance art, it's so pretentious.
I took a freaking tower of pizzas and about ten liters of soda to the local community theatre, where the show had just wrapped up, and the actors were still in costume. And, like the people playing with fire and devil sticks in the driveway, they seemed giddy and drunk.
They offered me some punch. I wanted some, but I had to drive, so it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. I turned them down, but they didn’t seem too bothered.
They even put on an impromptu show, with big sweeping gestures and accents and everything. It was actually pretty impressive, how they only broke character to collapse on the floor in laughter.
I think that kid could kick your ass.
I knocked on the door. Then waited. Knocked again, waited again. Rung the bell about five times. Considered sitting down on the porch and eating the damn pizza myself.
Eventually, an older woman in flannel pajamas answered the door. Behind her, there was a bunch of balloons and streamers, and what appeared to be three generations of a family tossing around a foam football.
A foam football that flew through the door, hit me in the fucking face, and practically knocked the pizza out of my hands. My response probably wasn’t ideal, but I was already irritated from having to hang around waiting so long, and the foam ball was harder than it looked, and it hurt my face a little, so I kind of had a short fuse.
“Jesus, watch where you’re tossin’ that thing!”
The woman standing in the doorway looked unfazed, by both my injury and my reaction to it, but I had apparently started something with the dude who’d thrown the ball in the first place.
“It’s my goddamn house!”
He was the right age to be the woman’s son, but I couldn’t be sure how they were related.
Whatever she was to him, she looked like she dealt with this all the time. By which I mean, she did nothing. I picked the ball up off the porch and tossed it back inside.
“Yeah, well, this is my goddamn job!”
We glared at each other for a while. Now, I tower over pretty much everyone, so glaring usually does the job. But, Pissy Football Man wasn’t backing down. Eventually his mom, or whoever she was, stage-whispered something in his ear.
“…You made the pizza boy very angry.”
He went on glaring for a few more seconds, then sank back into the house.
That was a shitty, baffling experience, but at least the Maybe-Mom tipped well.
Your mommy will explain it later, kid.
Next stop was a pair of teenage siblings who looked like they were home alone, but I saw two cars in the driveway, so I assumed there was a parent lurking in there somewhere. The girl paid, and seemed polite enough, until the boy, who was perched on the couch, yelled “…Ask him!” To say I wasn’t prepared for what was about to come out of her mouth would be an understatement.
“Um… What to you call your genitals?”
This wasn’t something I wanted to get in to with a customer, and between her and the lady who tried to buy some jizz off me, I wondered if I’d gone out on Pervert Night or something.
“What?”
She shrugged, like this was a normal conversation to be having with a stranger.
“Your downstairs. We were just talkin’ about how guys and girls have like, these unique sets of equally vague terms. What do you call it?”
Her straight face was honestly bothering me more than what she was saying.
“I don’t know!”
Now she was just looking at me like I was an idiot.
“…You don’t know?”
“No, but I’m here to deliver a pizza, not discuss my dick!”
The girl leaned back into the house, to tell her brother what she’d learned. I wanted to kick myself, in the dick, for letting that one slip out.
“…He says ‘dick’!”
The boy cheered, god knows why.
And then, from a room I couldn’t see, I heard what must have been their mom.
“…Did I just hear what I think I heard!? Did you seriously ask the pizza guy about this!?”
Apparently, it had been an ongoing discussion.
Get a life, ladies and gentlemen!
When I had to take twenty pizzas to the same address, I pretty much knew what was happening, and I wanted to fucking curbstomp the jackass responsible for this.
Then I told myself that I might be wrong It could have been an unusually large party. Or the world’s most stoned man.
But, no, it was a goddamn pizza prank. Again.
The “customer,” who wasn’t really a customer at all, spent about fifteen minutes pacing back and forth in his driveway, ranting about a man named Larry and a ladder that hadn’t been returned to its rightful owner.
Eventually, I just left, taking the pizzas with me. Frankie and I would be good on food for the next week. There was even enough that I could give some away if I wanted.
Still, I hoped to hell that the ranting man would give Larry his doggone ladder back, because I didn’t ever want to have to do this again.
I'm mad! I'm out of my tiny little mind! I'm screwy-louie, I'm... see, this is acting.
First, I heard some shuffling.
Then, I heard a man’s voice. At first, I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but when I finally could, it was pretty memorable.
“Oh, they’re laughing now, but just you wait, Little Edmund… Atom bombs, Little Edmund, atom bombs! That’ll show them all! Little Edmund is such a good listener…”
The door flung open. It was a thirty-something dude in boxer shorts and slippers. I tried not to look too astonished. The man cleared his throat.
“Sorry about that. I’m… I’m not really launching any atom bombs.”
Well, no shit. Actually, it wasn’t so much the atom bomb thing that bothered me. I just wanted to know who or what the fuck “Little Edmund” was. A figment of a madman’s imagination, perhaps?
Mad or not, he signed the receipt, then shrugged.
“I was just telling Little Edmund about my day at work.”
He nodded towards the floor, and I saw a black cat sitting at his feet.
Little Edmund was struggling to keep his eyes open, and tilting from side to side like a drunk. He’d probably just gotten up from a nap, and didn’t want to listen to this doofus mumbling about nuking his co-workers.
Before I left, I reached down and petted Little Edmund on the head. I figured he‘d earned it.
What part of "shut up" don't you understand?
I’d brought a matching set of pepperoni pizzas, and was greeted by a matching set of stoners, a guy and a girl, both baked out of their mind. Generally, I didn’t mind stoners. They were cheerful, and always happy to see me.
They also had a tendency to ramble on and make me late for the next delivery, but that wasn’t such a huge deal. Better late than bored.
The girl beamed at me.
“…Would you give us our pizza for free if we told you a funny story?”
Of course I would. Goddamn, I hate the world…
“I would! But, my boss wouldn’t, so I can’t help you.”
She looked a bit downtrodden for half a second, then immediately forgot all about it.
“…Do you wanna hear a funny story anyway?”
For the record, that’s a really stupid question.
“Sure!”
She looked at the guy. The guy stood in silence for a while, picking his own brain for the most amusing thing he could find. Then he took a deep breath, enough air for an epic yarn.
“When I was a kid, we used to have, like, this anatomical dummy in the car… My dad was, you know, an orderly or whatever? And I guess a doctor was throwin’ it out or some shit, so he took it, and I know why he did, because it was pretty sweet, but I didn’t know why it was in the car…”
The girl elbowed him.
“Get to the point, Roger, the man’s on the clock.”
Roger went on with his story.
“Alright, alright… Anyway, we were on this long trip once, and my brother and I… My big brother… Yeah, we were pretty bored, just horsin’ around and shit. So, what my brother does… And keep in mind, I was a real wussy little kid… But, yeah, my brother? Reached around, grabbed the dummy, shoved it right in my fuckin’ face. Like, dude. I cried. God, my dad was pissed about that…”
Something about that image made me laugh until I felt like I was going to implode. Roger and the girl were laughing, too, at nothing in particular. Finally, I composed myself.
“…You know what, I’ll be right back.”
I went to the car, got two of the prank pizzas, and handed them over.
“Here you go. Some douchebag called in a prank order, so I have, like, a whole shit-ton of extra pizza. You can have these. For the story.”
Roger started digging around in his sweatpants pocket.
“…And you can have this, for the pizzas!”
He produced a small nug of weed, and placed it in my hand. Score. I stashed it in my pocket. Then Roger hugged me, which was awkward as hell, but kind of sweet.
I decided these two were tied with Old Falcon Guy for Favorite Customer Ever.
And get some props!
When I went back to the shop for the last few pizzas of the night, I walked in on my boss swearing at a bunch of plastic vegetables.
“…Stay in the basket! Stay. In. The. Basket! Fuck almighty, why won’t you stay in the basket!?”
This was pretty much business as usual for him.
“Um… Is there a problem? Need any help?”
He whipped around, holding a tomato in one hand and an ear of corn in the other. A tomato, I understood. But what the hell does corn have to do with pizza?
“I’m just tryin’ to jazz up the front window a little.”
Honestly, I knew what the problem was: there were too many fake vegetables in one basket. But, I reckoned it wasn’t my business. I started heading for the kitchen.
“…Wait! Wait. You think you can do any better?”
I looked at the basket. A green tomato destabilized and rolled to the floor.
“Not really, no.”
“Just try. Seriously. Try, or you’re fucking fired.”
I thought that was a bit much, but my boss can be a little intense. He also has the world’s shortest attention span, so you never have to play along with his weird ideas for more than a few minutes, or fear any real repercussions for fucking up. I rearranged the fucking vegetables.
And watched them collapse to the floor. The boss picked up a plastic eggplant and hurled it across the room.
“God damn it all to hell!”
Then he started refilling straw dispensers. The vegetables were still rolling around on the floor.
I took the pizzas and got the heck outta there.
I got caught up in the moment.
“You were going to kill my spider!”
“…What?”
“I won’t let you get away with this!”
All I did was pick up a stick and push a few shrubs out of the way. Which was perfectly reasonable, considering I couldn’t get to the door otherwise. But, now this man was trying to hit me with a mop, and I was starting to get the idea that I might die tonight.
“I never even saw a spider!”
“Don’t lie to me! I have security cameras!”
He brought the mop down again. I dodged out of the way, trying to hold on to the pizza. If I dropped it, he’d probably kill me for real.
“Dude, I’m not lying.”
“The hell you aren’t! You got that stick, and you’re gonna bop my spider!”
“Um, no. I was tryin’ to get through that hedge maze thing you got goin’ on in front of your door there.”
He looked back at the hedge, then looked at me.”
“…Really?”
“Yup.”
The crazy man dropped the mop on the ground.
“Man, I’m sorry, guy. It’s just that one of my neighbors is always talkin’ about wanting to smash my spider, and I set up a camera so’s I could jump out and scare them if they ever tried. And I knew you weren’t them, but I had the whole thing planned, and I guess I just got carried away. You know what? You get double tips for that.”
Tips are great and all, but right now, I was more interested in seeing the famous spider. It must really be something, to nearly drive a man to murder like that.
“Cool… So, where’s the spider?”
I got the idea that this was another moment he’d been waiting for.
“Right here!”
He pulled a tiny flashlight out of his pocket, and shone it on the spider. She was fucking huge, and I almost walked right into her web, but under that little spotlight, she looked awesome.
“…Very nice.”
Here, thou murderous, incestuous... cross-dressing Dane!
The road was bumpy, and didn’t have streetlights or sidewalks. The yard was overgrown and dying. The house was dark, and looked abandoned.
The man who answered the door was wearing a cheap Halloween wig. The kind with ratty tinsel in it, and it was crooked. His dress looked like it came from a church box or the morgue, then went on to live a long, hard life before this character finally got hold of it.
He didn’t say a word to me. It wasn’t until I handed over the pizza that I noticed he was clutching a huge, rusty butcher knife. Not just carrying it, but holding it like he was about to use it on something (someone?) before I so rudely interrupted him.
I couldn’t see much inside the house, but there was a shadowy figure slumped on the couch. And god help me, atop its head, I thought I could make out another wig.
Now, I know this isn’t logical, but I imagined that there was a whole hive of them back there, reproducing by budding and lying in wait with their rusty knives, itching to shank hapless pizza boys.
All things considered, it still wasn’t worse than that nutjob who wanted to bear my children a few hours ago.
If you're here with a small child, please place your own mask on first, and let the little bugger fend for himself.
I got to the last house at midnight. A little kid, maybe about ten, answered the door alone. And I looked around for an adult, but no, this was actually the customer. The only light in the house came from the TV, which was playing some noisy movie.
The kid paid with a sweaty twenty dollar bill, and muttered that I could keep the whole thing. Then he looked around nervously for a while, took a candy watch off his wrist, and placed it in my hand.
Now, even though good tips make me happy, I didn’t really feel right about overcharging this poor kid for his medium cheese. But, before I could offer to break the bill for him, he’d ducked back inside and locked the door. Walking to the car, I turned around and saw him in the window, watching his movie and munching away.
I ate the lemony face off the watch, and headed for home.
Oh, my brain!
Back at last, ragtag tips stuffed in my pockets, extra prank pizzas in tow, about ready to collapse.
Frankie was way ahead of me, and I thought he was asleep, but he was actually still high on cough syrup. I sat the pizzas on the coffee table and gave him a nudge.
“Scoot over, dude.”
He realized someone was talking to him, took a moment to parse what I said, then slithered up and leaned on the arm of the couch.
“Hey.”
I sat down next to him.
“Hi. You feeling better?”
I jammed a slice of pizza in my mouth. Frankie considered my question for a few seconds..
“…No.”
“Okay.”
“I will be tomorrow.”
Of course he would. And then we had as long as, I don’t know, a whole month before we had to go through this again. What can I say? Kid’s a fuckin’ vector.
“I’m sure you will. Also, you gotta quit taking the bus. This happens to you every friggin’ time.”
“Nah, I got this when a grocery checker sneezed in my face last Saturday… Anyway, I see someone called in a prank.”
Having polished off the first slice, I went in for a second. Driving around and dealing with psychos all night is pretty hungry work.
“Yeah. His friend didn’t return a ladder.”
“Oh… So, how was work otherwise?”
I shrugged.
“I dunno. Pretty normal.”
starphotographsStory: Universe B
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Summer Carnival), Canvas, Portrait, Saturation, Novelty Beads (http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5zifrTnXL1r6iatxo1_500.jpg)
Characters: Satchel (POV), some Frankie, half a town’s worth of one-offs.
Colors: Fake Blood Red, Folly 7 (Of course it’s edible!)
Word Count: 5,200ish
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: A typical night at work for the young Satchel Lennox.
Note: I’ll cop to being inspired by This hilarious post! (…And if that’s too many Supplies/Styles, I’ll just lop off a few that it ended up being by accident.)
It was the worst time of the day, that dead zone between a fun afternoon and an exciting night on the job. I was bored out of mind, waiting for the sun to set, sitting by the window. Because even the chance of seeing something interesting happening down on the sidewalk was more appealing than anything that could possibly be going on in the house.
All that was going on in the house was the television droning out that bottom-of-the-barrel programming they relegate to this part of the day, and my brother droning out parroted telemarketer scripts, stopping only to cough or sniffle or try to complain to me, even though it was obvious I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy looking down at my watch, looking out the window, willing the sun to set, looking back at my watch only to find out that it’s been less than five minutes. Scream internally, and repeat.
Frankie finally sets his phone on the table, then sinks into the grody couch.
“Satchel?”
“Hrm?”
“My head is full of crud.”
Believe me, I can hear.
“That sucks. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah…”
I wasn’t sure what he was agreeing to, and I didn’t really care. Honestly, I love him, but right now, he’s a whiny ball of germs and snot, and all I want is to get the fuck away from him for a few hours. There’s something about living with a person that makes everything they’ve ever done seem absolutely insufferable. But, the thought of us living apart was worse. So I spend a good number of my evenings delivering pizzas. Which isn’t without its own problems, but at least they’re different problems.
Finally, my watch shows the right time, and I snap into action.
“Well, I gotta get to work! Feel better, alright?”
“Okay.”
Frankie. Dude. What the hell are you agreeing with?
I decided it didn’t matter, and clomped downstairs to the pizza shop to start my night.
The first delivery of the night was to some young single mom and her kid. Which wasn’t surprising, because it usually is. It’s not the same mom and kid or anything. There’s just something about that demographic. They all want their goddamn six PM pizza, and they want it now, even though their house is in goddamn chaos.
This particular kid was running around in Groucho glasses, which was apparently some kind of issue. The mom did not want her wearing them in front of the pizza guy. I couldn’t even get a word in edgewise to say that the Pizza Guy didn’t give a fuck and wouldn’t remember them in an hour.
“Take those off, you look like a fool!”
All that did was make the kid crack up laughing at the word “fool.”
The mom gave me a long-suffering look. I just shrugged.
This is your own damage, lady.
I had enough problems of my own, without finding a child in a fake nose distasteful on top of everything else.
The next delivery was to one of those middle-of-nowhere addresses, where you don’t even think of people living, let alone doing things like ordering themselves a pizza. But, they did. Pretty frequently, actually.
Then I noticed that this particular out-of-the-way address looked familiar. Actually, I was pretty sure I knew where it was. I hoped it so, at least. Because if I was delivering to who I thought I was, it would be a return to one of my favorite customers.
And sure enough, I entered the woods, and turned down that familiar gravel road.
The person who lives at the end of that road is an old guy who sells huge carved wooden things. He has a barn full of tools, and an extra fridge in that barn, just for beer.
I kind of wanted to be him when I grew up.
Also, he’s a falconer.
I’m not sure he remembered me, even after I said I remembered him, but he let a hawk sit on my shoulder. Which was so cool that I didn’t even notice her talons were sticking into me. Not until I got back in the car and realized I was bleeding on my shirt.
I had a whole fat stack of pizzas for a house on the outskirts of what I’d consider downtown. What I found when I reached the address was a bunch of young people, late teens to thirties, I’d guess, sitting in lawn chairs in a half-circle on the driveway, cheering on a guy who was playing with some devil sticks. Ice clinked in their glasses, and some were cracking beers. A few of them already seemed pretty blotto. The biggest can of beer belonged to the guy with the devil sticks, and every time they fell, he’d grab it and tilt his head all the way back, taking huge gulps. The can was cold enough to sweat. Just looking at it made me thirsty.
By the time I managed to get their attention, the original devil stick guy had plopped down in a chair, panting, and the sticks were taken up by a very drunk girl, who was demonstrating a surprising amount of control for someone who was laughing hysterically with unbridled glee.
She let the sticks fall in midair when she realized there was pizza to be had, and everyone followed her, digging in hungrily. Except for one guy, who hung back to give me a curiously large tip, and insist I stay and party with them. I apologized, and said I had to get back to work.
With a definite pang of regret, I turned to leave.
The regret only increased when I glanced behind me, and saw a topless woman spinning poi, lightning fast and unafraid of fire.
I went back to the shop for new orders and more pizzas multiple times in a night, but it was usually uneventful.
This time was different. There was an angry man shouting and banging his fist on the counter. His pizza, apparently, had arrived at his home all mangled. I didn’t remember this guy, but he sure thought he remembered me.
“…You! What’s wrong with you? What the fuck did you do to my pizza!?”
“Um… Nothing? I didn’t deliver to you, dude?”
He clenched his jaw.
“You didn’t deliver to me?”
I realized he was a fucking dumbass, and adjusted my tone accordingly.
“That’s what I said.”
But, in his world, I delivered to him, and he couldn’t be convinced otherwise.
“Don’t lie! If you didn’t deliver my pizza, who did!? You see any other delivery boys here!?”
“No, I don’t. They’re all out making deliveries.”
What started as nervous laughter gave way to full-on cackling at the absurdity of the situation. I did my best to hold it in, but some of it escaped as a stupid snort. That made the disgruntled customer go ballistic. He leaned over the counter and started screaming for the manager.
“That piece of shit just laughed at me! Will somebody fuckin’ do something, already!? And what about my refund!? …The delivery boy laughed at me!”
He was trying to complain about two things at once, which wasn’t working out so well. I snorted again. Then the dam broke. I had to sit down. So I sat right there on the tiles, laughing until my ribs hurt.
Eventually, my boss did emerge from his cave. And he rewarded the angry man with his refund.
But, he also turned to me and muttered, “sorry about that.”
See, my boss kind of hates me. Most authority figures do, because they know I don’t respect them, and that makes them want to back over me with their car. Or whatever. But, my boss admitted I didn’t deserve a verbal smackdown for being a smartass. So, all in all, it was a victory.
Sometimes, when we sold someone a pizza, they’d waste a bunch of time trying to sell something to me.
The wannabe salesman, in this case, was trying to sell me some kind of shady vitamin supplement. I refused his offer, because I was worried it might make my head explode. Also, I get enough vitamins from food, which I generally enjoy more than taking big old horse pills.
I wanted him to just take his goddamn pizza and go back in the house. The dark, sinister-looking house, with a saggy brown couch, a shadeless lamp, and a dusty picture of an impaled Jesus hanging right in the middle of the living room. And that was just what I managed to see through the front door. Who knew what was lurking inside, between the old pizza boxes and giant bottles of pills.
The crazy motherfucker wouldn’t let up. This was his system. It was patented. Or would be, once the patent office got around to looking at it. He couldn’t currently make any promises about the patent, but he could promise that it would change my life.
“Look, I’m on the clock here. Will you let me go if I tell you I’ll think about it?”
He did.
He also gave me his poorly-designed business card instead of a tip, which made me want to smash his head through a window.
I ripped up the ugly business card and threw it out on the highway. Then I delivered a large cheese pizza to three fourteen-year-old boys, who were skateboarding on some kind of rickety, but impressive, plywood structure in someone’s backyard. One of them had a bloody knee, and they were all yelling about a nail. A lot of the drama centered around whether family members should be called, but the bloodied kid kept ranting about how he came over to the host-child’s house to skateboard because his mom was neurotic and wouldn’t let him.
This all sort of reminded me of my own mom, who thought the benign heart murmur Frankie had as a kid was one of those deadly heart defects you always hear about people being born with.
I felt bad for bloody-knee kid, so he was the kid to whom I handed the pizza. It was the least I could do. He’d get first pick, and might even get that slice with the brown bubble on it that everyone always fights over.
Then they all started panicking about how they hadn’t considered the tip when they pooled their money to order a pizza. One of the kids, probably the host, told me not to go anywhere, and bolted into the house. The other two explained all sorts of stuff about the plywood thing and skateboarding in general, which was pretty interesting.
The kid who went in the house emerged with a full roll of quarters, plopped it in my hand, and gave me an affirming nod.
“For the arcade. But you can’t, like, not tip the pizza guy, so you can have ‘em”
Little dude, your mom raised you right.
It was never the late-night orders you had to watch out for. They were usually a little weird, but polite enough about it. Actually, most late-night pizza customers remind me of people I could be friends with. Weird people are my people.
No, the really fucked up person was always just after dusk. And tonight was no exception.
This time, it was a prim fortyish woman, who lived all by herself in a nice neighborhood.
But, according to her, she wasn’t going to be alone for much longer. She was planning for kids, you see. She just had to find the right sperm donor, you see.
She commented on my height. Also, apparently, I have a very symmetrical face. Then she wanted to know if I considered myself an intelligent person.
I didn’t like where this was going, so I handed her the pizza, took the money, and burned rubber.
The whole way back to the pizza shop, I wondered what kind of cruel harpy would wish being six-foot-five on her poor hypothetical children.
When I got back to the shop, my boss told me there was an order from one of the apartments upstairs. This was something people did all the time.
Shitty, lazy people.
Then I saw the room number.
Oh, fuck you sideways.
I went upstairs, to deliver a pizza to my own fucking apartment, because my shit-for-brains brother thought this was a good idea.
When I got there, Frankie was still glued to the couch. Actually, at some point during the evening, he must have dragged himself up to get an extra blanket and put on his robe. At least he seemed happy to see me.
“Hey Satchel!”
He coughed into one of the millions of used tissues that orbited the couch like trash asteroids. Trashteroids.
“Franks’n’Beans. Hey. Um… You do know you can just walk downstairs and get a pizza, right?”
Frankie shrugged. At least, I think that was a shrug. He might have just been trying to further mire himself in the sofa cushions.
“Yeah, I know. But I have a fever. I didn’t feel like getting up.”
“…You’re just high on cough syrup.”
“Maybe a little of that, too…” He brightened up instantly. “…Hey, you wanna stay and have some pizza?”
God, he was pathetic. That, and I liked him more than any of the other bozos I had to fetch things for. I had a hard time saying no.
“Franks, I’m at work.”
“I know, but…”
“…But, I can’t hang out here eating pizza all night. I’d get in trouble.”
Now he looked genuinely wounded. But, I’d get over that. Hell, he was already over it. He tore into a slice of pizza, and got back to whatever weird crap he’d been watching.
“Okay. See you tonight!”
“Later, kiddo.”
I took a freaking tower of pizzas and about ten liters of soda to the local community theatre, where the show had just wrapped up, and the actors were still in costume. And, like the people playing with fire and devil sticks in the driveway, they seemed giddy and drunk.
They offered me some punch. I wanted some, but I had to drive, so it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. I turned them down, but they didn’t seem too bothered.
They even put on an impromptu show, with big sweeping gestures and accents and everything. It was actually pretty impressive, how they only broke character to collapse on the floor in laughter.
I knocked on the door. Then waited. Knocked again, waited again. Rung the bell about five times. Considered sitting down on the porch and eating the damn pizza myself.
Eventually, an older woman in flannel pajamas answered the door. Behind her, there was a bunch of balloons and streamers, and what appeared to be three generations of a family tossing around a foam football.
A foam football that flew through the door, hit me in the fucking face, and practically knocked the pizza out of my hands. My response probably wasn’t ideal, but I was already irritated from having to hang around waiting so long, and the foam ball was harder than it looked, and it hurt my face a little, so I kind of had a short fuse.
“Jesus, watch where you’re tossin’ that thing!”
The woman standing in the doorway looked unfazed, by both my injury and my reaction to it, but I had apparently started something with the dude who’d thrown the ball in the first place.
“It’s my goddamn house!”
He was the right age to be the woman’s son, but I couldn’t be sure how they were related.
Whatever she was to him, she looked like she dealt with this all the time. By which I mean, she did nothing. I picked the ball up off the porch and tossed it back inside.
“Yeah, well, this is my goddamn job!”
We glared at each other for a while. Now, I tower over pretty much everyone, so glaring usually does the job. But, Pissy Football Man wasn’t backing down. Eventually his mom, or whoever she was, stage-whispered something in his ear.
“…You made the pizza boy very angry.”
He went on glaring for a few more seconds, then sank back into the house.
That was a shitty, baffling experience, but at least the Maybe-Mom tipped well.
Next stop was a pair of teenage siblings who looked like they were home alone, but I saw two cars in the driveway, so I assumed there was a parent lurking in there somewhere. The girl paid, and seemed polite enough, until the boy, who was perched on the couch, yelled “…Ask him!” To say I wasn’t prepared for what was about to come out of her mouth would be an understatement.
“Um… What to you call your genitals?”
This wasn’t something I wanted to get in to with a customer, and between her and the lady who tried to buy some jizz off me, I wondered if I’d gone out on Pervert Night or something.
“What?”
She shrugged, like this was a normal conversation to be having with a stranger.
“Your downstairs. We were just talkin’ about how guys and girls have like, these unique sets of equally vague terms. What do you call it?”
Her straight face was honestly bothering me more than what she was saying.
“I don’t know!”
Now she was just looking at me like I was an idiot.
“…You don’t know?”
“No, but I’m here to deliver a pizza, not discuss my dick!”
The girl leaned back into the house, to tell her brother what she’d learned. I wanted to kick myself, in the dick, for letting that one slip out.
“…He says ‘dick’!”
The boy cheered, god knows why.
And then, from a room I couldn’t see, I heard what must have been their mom.
“…Did I just hear what I think I heard!? Did you seriously ask the pizza guy about this!?”
Apparently, it had been an ongoing discussion.
When I had to take twenty pizzas to the same address, I pretty much knew what was happening, and I wanted to fucking curbstomp the jackass responsible for this.
Then I told myself that I might be wrong It could have been an unusually large party. Or the world’s most stoned man.
But, no, it was a goddamn pizza prank. Again.
The “customer,” who wasn’t really a customer at all, spent about fifteen minutes pacing back and forth in his driveway, ranting about a man named Larry and a ladder that hadn’t been returned to its rightful owner.
Eventually, I just left, taking the pizzas with me. Frankie and I would be good on food for the next week. There was even enough that I could give some away if I wanted.
Still, I hoped to hell that the ranting man would give Larry his doggone ladder back, because I didn’t ever want to have to do this again.
First, I heard some shuffling.
Then, I heard a man’s voice. At first, I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but when I finally could, it was pretty memorable.
“Oh, they’re laughing now, but just you wait, Little Edmund… Atom bombs, Little Edmund, atom bombs! That’ll show them all! Little Edmund is such a good listener…”
The door flung open. It was a thirty-something dude in boxer shorts and slippers. I tried not to look too astonished. The man cleared his throat.
“Sorry about that. I’m… I’m not really launching any atom bombs.”
Well, no shit. Actually, it wasn’t so much the atom bomb thing that bothered me. I just wanted to know who or what the fuck “Little Edmund” was. A figment of a madman’s imagination, perhaps?
Mad or not, he signed the receipt, then shrugged.
“I was just telling Little Edmund about my day at work.”
He nodded towards the floor, and I saw a black cat sitting at his feet.
Little Edmund was struggling to keep his eyes open, and tilting from side to side like a drunk. He’d probably just gotten up from a nap, and didn’t want to listen to this doofus mumbling about nuking his co-workers.
Before I left, I reached down and petted Little Edmund on the head. I figured he‘d earned it.
I’d brought a matching set of pepperoni pizzas, and was greeted by a matching set of stoners, a guy and a girl, both baked out of their mind. Generally, I didn’t mind stoners. They were cheerful, and always happy to see me.
They also had a tendency to ramble on and make me late for the next delivery, but that wasn’t such a huge deal. Better late than bored.
The girl beamed at me.
“…Would you give us our pizza for free if we told you a funny story?”
Of course I would. Goddamn, I hate the world…
“I would! But, my boss wouldn’t, so I can’t help you.”
She looked a bit downtrodden for half a second, then immediately forgot all about it.
“…Do you wanna hear a funny story anyway?”
For the record, that’s a really stupid question.
“Sure!”
She looked at the guy. The guy stood in silence for a while, picking his own brain for the most amusing thing he could find. Then he took a deep breath, enough air for an epic yarn.
“When I was a kid, we used to have, like, this anatomical dummy in the car… My dad was, you know, an orderly or whatever? And I guess a doctor was throwin’ it out or some shit, so he took it, and I know why he did, because it was pretty sweet, but I didn’t know why it was in the car…”
The girl elbowed him.
“Get to the point, Roger, the man’s on the clock.”
Roger went on with his story.
“Alright, alright… Anyway, we were on this long trip once, and my brother and I… My big brother… Yeah, we were pretty bored, just horsin’ around and shit. So, what my brother does… And keep in mind, I was a real wussy little kid… But, yeah, my brother? Reached around, grabbed the dummy, shoved it right in my fuckin’ face. Like, dude. I cried. God, my dad was pissed about that…”
Something about that image made me laugh until I felt like I was going to implode. Roger and the girl were laughing, too, at nothing in particular. Finally, I composed myself.
“…You know what, I’ll be right back.”
I went to the car, got two of the prank pizzas, and handed them over.
“Here you go. Some douchebag called in a prank order, so I have, like, a whole shit-ton of extra pizza. You can have these. For the story.”
Roger started digging around in his sweatpants pocket.
“…And you can have this, for the pizzas!”
He produced a small nug of weed, and placed it in my hand. Score. I stashed it in my pocket. Then Roger hugged me, which was awkward as hell, but kind of sweet.
I decided these two were tied with Old Falcon Guy for Favorite Customer Ever.
When I went back to the shop for the last few pizzas of the night, I walked in on my boss swearing at a bunch of plastic vegetables.
“…Stay in the basket! Stay. In. The. Basket! Fuck almighty, why won’t you stay in the basket!?”
This was pretty much business as usual for him.
“Um… Is there a problem? Need any help?”
He whipped around, holding a tomato in one hand and an ear of corn in the other. A tomato, I understood. But what the hell does corn have to do with pizza?
“I’m just tryin’ to jazz up the front window a little.”
Honestly, I knew what the problem was: there were too many fake vegetables in one basket. But, I reckoned it wasn’t my business. I started heading for the kitchen.
“…Wait! Wait. You think you can do any better?”
I looked at the basket. A green tomato destabilized and rolled to the floor.
“Not really, no.”
“Just try. Seriously. Try, or you’re fucking fired.”
I thought that was a bit much, but my boss can be a little intense. He also has the world’s shortest attention span, so you never have to play along with his weird ideas for more than a few minutes, or fear any real repercussions for fucking up. I rearranged the fucking vegetables.
And watched them collapse to the floor. The boss picked up a plastic eggplant and hurled it across the room.
“God damn it all to hell!”
Then he started refilling straw dispensers. The vegetables were still rolling around on the floor.
I took the pizzas and got the heck outta there.
“You were going to kill my spider!”
“…What?”
“I won’t let you get away with this!”
All I did was pick up a stick and push a few shrubs out of the way. Which was perfectly reasonable, considering I couldn’t get to the door otherwise. But, now this man was trying to hit me with a mop, and I was starting to get the idea that I might die tonight.
“I never even saw a spider!”
“Don’t lie to me! I have security cameras!”
He brought the mop down again. I dodged out of the way, trying to hold on to the pizza. If I dropped it, he’d probably kill me for real.
“Dude, I’m not lying.”
“The hell you aren’t! You got that stick, and you’re gonna bop my spider!”
“Um, no. I was tryin’ to get through that hedge maze thing you got goin’ on in front of your door there.”
He looked back at the hedge, then looked at me.”
“…Really?”
“Yup.”
The crazy man dropped the mop on the ground.
“Man, I’m sorry, guy. It’s just that one of my neighbors is always talkin’ about wanting to smash my spider, and I set up a camera so’s I could jump out and scare them if they ever tried. And I knew you weren’t them, but I had the whole thing planned, and I guess I just got carried away. You know what? You get double tips for that.”
Tips are great and all, but right now, I was more interested in seeing the famous spider. It must really be something, to nearly drive a man to murder like that.
“Cool… So, where’s the spider?”
I got the idea that this was another moment he’d been waiting for.
“Right here!”
He pulled a tiny flashlight out of his pocket, and shone it on the spider. She was fucking huge, and I almost walked right into her web, but under that little spotlight, she looked awesome.
“…Very nice.”
The road was bumpy, and didn’t have streetlights or sidewalks. The yard was overgrown and dying. The house was dark, and looked abandoned.
The man who answered the door was wearing a cheap Halloween wig. The kind with ratty tinsel in it, and it was crooked. His dress looked like it came from a church box or the morgue, then went on to live a long, hard life before this character finally got hold of it.
He didn’t say a word to me. It wasn’t until I handed over the pizza that I noticed he was clutching a huge, rusty butcher knife. Not just carrying it, but holding it like he was about to use it on something (someone?) before I so rudely interrupted him.
I couldn’t see much inside the house, but there was a shadowy figure slumped on the couch. And god help me, atop its head, I thought I could make out another wig.
Now, I know this isn’t logical, but I imagined that there was a whole hive of them back there, reproducing by budding and lying in wait with their rusty knives, itching to shank hapless pizza boys.
All things considered, it still wasn’t worse than that nutjob who wanted to bear my children a few hours ago.
I got to the last house at midnight. A little kid, maybe about ten, answered the door alone. And I looked around for an adult, but no, this was actually the customer. The only light in the house came from the TV, which was playing some noisy movie.
The kid paid with a sweaty twenty dollar bill, and muttered that I could keep the whole thing. Then he looked around nervously for a while, took a candy watch off his wrist, and placed it in my hand.
Now, even though good tips make me happy, I didn’t really feel right about overcharging this poor kid for his medium cheese. But, before I could offer to break the bill for him, he’d ducked back inside and locked the door. Walking to the car, I turned around and saw him in the window, watching his movie and munching away.
I ate the lemony face off the watch, and headed for home.
Back at last, ragtag tips stuffed in my pockets, extra prank pizzas in tow, about ready to collapse.
Frankie was way ahead of me, and I thought he was asleep, but he was actually still high on cough syrup. I sat the pizzas on the coffee table and gave him a nudge.
“Scoot over, dude.”
He realized someone was talking to him, took a moment to parse what I said, then slithered up and leaned on the arm of the couch.
“Hey.”
I sat down next to him.
“Hi. You feeling better?”
I jammed a slice of pizza in my mouth. Frankie considered my question for a few seconds..
“…No.”
“Okay.”
“I will be tomorrow.”
Of course he would. And then we had as long as, I don’t know, a whole month before we had to go through this again. What can I say? Kid’s a fuckin’ vector.
“I’m sure you will. Also, you gotta quit taking the bus. This happens to you every friggin’ time.”
“Nah, I got this when a grocery checker sneezed in my face last Saturday… Anyway, I see someone called in a prank.”
Having polished off the first slice, I went in for a second. Driving around and dealing with psychos all night is pretty hungry work.
“Yeah. His friend didn’t return a ladder.”
“Oh… So, how was work otherwise?”
I shrugged.
“I dunno. Pretty normal.”