NYC Midnight 2015

I have returned to the blogosphere for now. Below is my first entry in the 2015 NYC Midnight Short Story competition.  I had a lot of fun crafting Pete's bad night.  Hope you enjoy it as well. 

I was assigned to Heat 13: Suspense/Witnessing a Crime/Pizza Delivery Guy

Good Kid

"Thanks so much. Enjoy your pizzas!"

After pocketing his generous tip, Pete lingered on the doorstep, adjusting his pizza delivery bag as Mrs. Weinraub closed the door with two larges in her hand.  She had a pack of ravenous boys to feed and didn't have to think about the familiar delivery guy on her doorstep.  She ordered from Two Brothers’ Pizzeria many times before and recognized the lanky young man who frequently brought her family their dinner.  He was that mid-twenties, skinny redhead who'd been there at least a half dozen times before, always nice, always polite, always on time.  A good kid.

Once the door was shut, and the insulated bag was resealed, ready for the next delivery, Pete turned and looked around the porch.  The squeals of delight and the stampeding of feet coming from the slumber party inside curled his lip in a scowl.  There was something malicious welling up inside him tonight and the internal struggle of right versus wrong was not going well.

"Eight-year-olds are rats!" he muttered to himself.

After observing the contents of the walkway of the suburban home, he began his departure. Carefully, he avoided the yard tools and gardening equipment that the family used earlier that day.  His attention was drawn to a blue and yellow plastic dump truck further down the walkway.  With the careful coordination of a field goal kicker, his size 11 Doc Marten boot found the brightly hued toy, and he menacingly punted it off of the walkway and watched it, now in two separate pieces, flip flop through the air towards the lawn. The extra point was good!  Assuming the family inside was none the wiser, he victoriously marched back to his car.  He didn't notice the curtains fluttering in the window, as if an eight-year-old boy had just peeked through them.

Once seated in the car, he closed his eyes and began taking deep, cleansing breaths, trying to regain his focus, trying to calm down. "What the hell is wrong with me?" he wondered.  Pete's concentration broke when he remembered there was another order to deliver.  With a quick exhale, he came to, started the car, and headed off to the second house two blocks away. Pulling away from the house, his favored music choice of death metal covered the sound of Mrs. Weinraub trying to stop him, as she was curious why he destroyed her son's toy.

He approached the next house, a two-story brick Georgian.  The neglected garden and lawn made it look more like a run-down bachelor pad than a family home. In the driveway sat a relic from a time long gone, a 1979 gold Chevy El Camino.  This was a new house for him, having driven this neighborhood, delivering pizzas for the better part of two years.  He pulled up to the curb, double-checking the address with the computer printout he retrieved before leaving the store.

"I guess so," he mumbled to himself.

Grabbing the pizza bag from the passenger seat, ready to deliver more food, he double-checked his left pocket. The butterfly knife that rested there always went with him when he worked, but he's never had to use it.  It was a gift from his predecessor at Two Brothers - a college grad who was so sick of pizza, he got rid of all the reminders of this money making chapter of his life, passing the weapon onto Pete.

The back of the El Camino contained a pickaxe and a few cans of paint.  He admired the vintage auto for its unique design, as well as its reputation of being the official vehicle for white-trash old guys.  Twisting around the front bumper, he approached the door and rang the bell. Time seemed to stop during the ten seconds between notification and the door opening.  A portly man in his fifties, scruffed out by several days worth of five o'clock shadow, greeted him.  His slightly exposed, hirsute gut was otherwise covered by a Chicago Bears shirt, likely purchased during the Coach Ditka era of the 1980's.

"Good evening, Mister...Johnson?  One large cheeseburger pizza, and a dozen hot wings?"

"Yeah, that’s me,” mumbled Mr. Johnson.

"That’ll be $26.95."

"Here."  He shoved a wad of cash at Pete, who quickly unraveled the moist, crumpled bills, counting them out.  The sweaty currency totaled twenty-seven dollars. A lousy five-cent tip.

Pete knew what a decent tip was, and knowing that tonight, he would not be getting one darkened his mood more. It was his own car delivering pizzas; therefore, he needed the well-earned cash to go into the gas tank.  Most people in this neighborhood would round up to the next five or ten and then sometimes added two to three more bucks if it didn't seem like enough. Two Brothers had been serving pizza in this neighborhood for twenty years, and everyone knew how good it was.  Certainly the drivers should get a respectful bit on top.  

Laser-aimed daggers would have shot from his eyes if they could due to the twinge of pain developing from his anger. Despite his fury, he chose to not combat the issue.

"Ttttthhhhhankyou" he sarcastically hissed out, looking back up at Mr. Johnson.

"Yeah, whatever...freak."

Mr. Cheeseburger Pizza’s insult was muttered so quietly under his alcohol breath, he was convinced the spiky-haired, carrot-topped delivery guy wouldn't hear it.   He squinted his eye as he shut the door on Pete, knowing there was something strange about him but didn't care.  

With two deadbolts firmly secured, Pete remained stock-still.  The pain shifted from his eye to his throat, as bile crept up his esophagus.  He bunched his lips in a grumpy frown, as his brow pushed down on his face with a warped intensity.

Pete turned on the spot and started to walk back to his car.  He threw down the open pizza bag in front of the El Camino, and grabbed the two cans of paint from the back.  The dense containers accidentally hit the tailgate of the car, echoing a loud clang through the neighborhood causing Pete to flinch at the impact.  After registering it was the cans hitting the car, he galloped back to his vehicle, popped the trunk and tossed them in, landing with a dull thud. Slamming the trunk closed, he stomped over to the driver’s door, jumped in, started it up...and sat.  His unblinking eyes stared down the road at no specific target, intensely frozen in place.  His brain buzzed with rage and frustration.

“Paint cans? Why the fuck did you take the paint cans, you dumbass? And you left the damn pizza bag too!  God damn.... that fat... errrrrRRRUUH!"  

Pete's rage quickly crescendoed, along with the crunching, loud music pouring from his speakers. He popped the trunk, left the car running, hopped out and walked back to the customer's parked car.  Stopping first at the bed of the truck, he retrieved what he really should have grabbed the first time. The handle of the pickaxe fit his hand like he was an experienced excavator.   His knuckles changed from pink to white as he steadily eyed the classic auto, tightly gripping the destructive tool.  The car was well cared for over the decades.  That is, until Pete was shorted a few bucks by the asshat with bad taste in pizza.

He walked to the front of the innocent vehicle, looking down upon it like a hunter standing over a wounded animal, ready to inflict the final blow.  With a clenched jaw, and deep, fast breathing through his nose, he wanted to raise the pickaxe over his head for the brutal death stroke.  However, a dropped pickaxe from above would merely dent the hood, but not create the rage-fueled destruction he desired.  Instead, he took the posture of a baseball player standing at home plate.  Positioning himself perpendicular to the front of the car, he bent his knees, and shouldered the pickaxe away from the vehicle.

"BatterrrrrrrrrrrrUP!"

Pete swung for the cheap seats way out in centerfield.  Instead of the crack of the bat, it was the shattering of a headlight that rocked the neighborhood.  The glass cover exploded on impact, showering his legs and the driveway with flying shards and pelted chunks. The destruction had so much force behind it; the sharp edge of the axe buried itself all the way into the reflective backing of the headlight.  With deranged amusement, not expecting the tool to wedge itself in the car, he wrenched it out, removing almost the entire light fixture in the process.  Guffawing at the impressive result, he reveled in the sound of the pulverized headlight being brutally ripped out by the pickaxe.  Laughing maniacally, he picked up the pizza bag, while continuing his hold on the pickaxe, treating it like the world’s greatest consolation prize.

Now satisfied with his efforts, he strutted back to his car with pride. The emergence of light, diagonally across the street caught his attention.  A front door opened with a neighbor walking out, followed by another next door to where he was, freezing Pete in his tracks.

"What’s going on out here?" the first neighbor asked.

Not expecting a conversation, Pete hesitantly responded in a sing-song voice while cautiously resuming the walk to his car.

"Two...Brothers...Pizza delivery.  Order online!”

"What did you do to Chuck's car?" asked the next-door neighbor. 

"I'm calling the cops!" yelled the first neighbor.

Pete's face went flush, and he sprinted towards his open trunk, throwing in the two items. He heard another door open, this time it was right behind him, where he previously stood.

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO MY CAR, YOU LITTLE BASTARD???  I'LL RIP YOUR GODDAMN-"

He slammed the trunk shut, securing the bag and the axe, hopped into the running auto, and peeled out.  Lucky for him, Chuck Johnson was not a fast runner or he would've caught up with Pete and tore him a new one, one that doesn't grow back or heal properly, if he only had his pickaxe.

Pete exited the neighborhood and aimlessly started to drive, breathing more rapidly than ever before.  He wasn't sure if he was riding an adrenaline rush, or hyperventilating, due to his uncontrolled snickering cackle.  The surge of energy and euphoria was overwhelming.  The further away he drove, he grew taller with pride and believed he was now, the most powerful man in the world.  Untouchable.

A few minutes passed, and when he regained his presence of mind, he knew he had to check back in at work.  "The man" was still in charge since he had Pete's auto hijacked with that enormous illuminated sign on the top of his car.  The gigantic glowing pizza slice, which looked more like an Italian food dorsal fin, didn't exactly scream "empowerment."  Maybe it was time for Pete to retire as well from the pizza game.

Two Brothers resided in a strip mall, illuminated with an industrial fluorescent glare.  The pizza shop was a small, walk-up business, wedged between a massive dry cleaner plant, and a horrid smoke shop that seemed to appeal to a clientele that enjoyed a leaf other than tobacco.  This was quite the seedy location, but Two Brothers got there first and prided itself on two decades worth of faithful customers supporting a small family business. Pete screeched into the parking spot in front where he always parked.  As he hopped out, he noticed his fifty-three year old manager, Joseph, looking out the window at him.  A bead of flop sweat grew on Pete's forehead, but he moved confidently.  He walked back to the trunk, opened it, and reached in for the pizza bag, which was lying next to Chuck Johnson's lifted cans of paint and the pickaxe. Eyeing his prizes, he grabbed only the bag, slammed the trunk shut and entered the shop to the sound of Joseph's irate questioning.

"What the hell are you doing out there?"

"Huh?" Pete replied nonchalantly.

"I just got a call from a customer, Mr. Johnson.  He had some pretty strong words for me about you!  Is it true?"

With more than an ounce of disdain at the tenor of the questioning, Pete spat, "Is WHAT true?" as he placed the pizza bag on the counter.  A few shards of headlight glass fell out of the bag, which caught the manager's eye.  Joseph continued without skipping a beat.

"It’s true!  You took out his headlight!"

"I also lifted his pickaxe and some paint too." Pete chuckled.

"You what?"

"HE STIFFED ME ON THE TIP, JOE!" Pete immediately screamed back with popped veins in his neck.  Defensive rage sounded good in his head but not to Joseph.

"Jesus Christ, Petey! Where's your brain, kid?  Are you that damn stupid to do something like that over a few bucks?"

Joseph found Pete's button.  With a swift motion, the butterfly knife danced around in Pete's hand as it emerged from his pocket, now unsheathed and pointing right at his manager.

"I am not STUPID!  IS THAT WHAT YOU THINK, OLD MAN?" roared Pete with spittle and fury.

This wasn't the first knife ever pointed at Joseph, but it hurt him the most. Two years ago, he never imagined this from the sweet-faced kid he hired.

"Kid, I never thought you were that person.  Don't do this!" pleaded the older man, now lowering his voice and staring Pete in the eye.

With the approaching siren and blue and red police lights, Pete had to quickly decide what his next move was going to be.  He was still pointing the knife at Joseph as two cops burst in, guns pointed at him as they yelled "DROP IT!"

The startling brightness in his vision now made it painfully obvious how to Pete how much he messed up. As he lowered his arm, dropping the knife on the floor, he saw past the cops to see a one-eyed, gold 1979 El Camino pulling into the parking lot behind them. Chuck stepped out yelling, "That’s him!  That’s the damn psycho who wrecked my car!"

Pete willfully surrendered, knowing that, for now, his reign as the most powerful man in the world had come to an end.