Pizza Delivery

You are doing your pizza deliveries. You have been to three houses this evening; they are far apart today. You are tired. On yesterday’s rounds you hit a speed bump the wrong way on your bicycle and became intimate with the pavement. Today you are feeling the consequences. You only have four more deliveries to get through though, so you will probably manage alright. Tomorrow is Sunday and you have the day off.

You roll up to a simple, neat bungalow, flip down your bike’s parking stand, and carefully remove your helmet. You had to customise it so that your antlers could fit through the slits. The house bears the numbers 111 in oxidised copper. You like that.

You slide two pizzas from their cubicle on the back of your bike. They aren’t exactly fresh any more, but they are still hot. Medium Greek with no olives for the lady, large three-cheese with sardines and salami for the man and the cats.

You walk up the front path and ring the doorbell. Woody the Woodpecker’s laugh resonates inside. “I’ll get it honey,” says a man. The door opens. The man is in his late 30s but looks youthful, a neat haircut and well-formed features the cherry on top of an expensive white dress shirt and black pinstriped pants. He looks like his house, you think.

“Who the fuck are you?” he yelps, taking a step back into the house and half shutting the door in your face. He is alarmed by the lack of your clothes, you surmise. You simply feel more comfortable wearing only tighty whities. You give him a smile that is supposed to be reassuring but when paired with your huge eyes just looks crazed.

“Pizza delivery!”

“You have the wrong house, sir,” says the man, swallowing excessively and adjusting an imaginary tie.

“Medium Greek with no olives for the lady; large three-cheese with sardines and salami for you and the cats,” you say, popping the lid of the top box open.

With this statement and accompanying demonstration of goods, the man’s face transforms. You imagine a miniature worker inside the man’s brain flipping a switch labelled Pizza to “On.” You smile toothily. The man smiles back.

“Honey,” he calls into the house. “Can you come to the door for a second?”

“Who is it?” replies a female voice. Shuffling and depositing of dishes on counters is followed by a light tread on the hallway carpet, which evolves into a young woman, equally as neat and pretty as the man and their house. As soon as she sees you, she shrieks and grabs at her husband’s arm.

“What the fuck is going on?” she cries.

“It’s okay, honey,” says the man in his Calming-My-Wife voice, turning to her and stroking her hair gently.

“Is it!?” she rebukes, brushing his hand from her hair in agitation. “There is a hairy, freakish man standing on our doorstep wearing nothing but tighty whities and antlers and you call that OKAY!?!” She tries to push past her husband to close the door, but he blocks her way.

“He’s just the pizza delivery guy,” he says.

His wife stares at him, uncomprehending.

“He’s just delivering our pizzas,” the man reiterates.

His wife continues to stare, then takes a breath. “But we haven’t ordered any pizzas.”

The man gives you a small confidential nod. You take the hint.

“Medium Greek with no olives for the lady. Large three-cheese with sardines and salami for the gentleman. And the cats,” you announce.

“And the cats,” repeats the man.

The woman looks from you to her husband and back, her eyes open wide. Her mouth parts in a soft “Oh,” then she retreats into the house. The man looks at you and shrugs. You both stand at the doorstep in silence, shifting from one foot to the other. You can see pairs of shoes scattered in the entryway. A long-haired calico brushes past your leg and slinks down the hallway. They always know.

The woman returns to the door, some bills in her hand. “How much?”

You shrug awkwardly. You don’t like this part. The best things in life are free.

“Whatever you think they’re worth.” You offer her the top box and she takes a slice. The first bite enters her mouth and as if by reflex, her eyes slowly close, and her whole body sinks into the taste and texture sensations.

Her husband observes her reaction, and reaches for the box himself. You intercept him. His pizza is the one underneath.

As soon as the man’s pizza box is opened, you are swarmed with cats. There are only three of them, but they have a zebra-like quality: you cannot tell where one ends and the next begins. The man removes a piece of pizza for himself, then you put one on the doorstep for the cats, who immediately leave off coddling you and become their lion-selves, tearing at the cheese and bread.

Meanwhile, the woman has finished her slice and is licking the oil from her fingers. She takes the pizza boxes from your arms, and removes another triangle for herself. Pizza halfway to her mouth, she remembers the bills still in her hand. She thrusts them at you. Two red twenties. You separate them from each other, and hold one in each hand, puzzled.

You hand one of the bills back to the woman, but she shakes her head vigorously. You thrust it towards her, but she shakes her head again. You are concerned it will come off if she isn’t careful.

“It isn’t worth this much,” you say desperately.

She nods, and hastily swallows to counter, “I want you to have it. The extra is your tip.” She glances at her husband for his acquiescence. There are tears sliding down his face, like elegant rivers of bliss. You want to leave.

You give the woman a last smile, place one of the bills gingerly on the doorstep, and walk back down the front path to your bicycle. You carefully slot your helmet over your antlers and do up the chinstrap. You give your bike’s kickstand a nudge, and it swings upward.

As you mount your bicycle, you hear the woman cry, “Where is this pizza from? What’s the address of your restaurant?”

You shake your head. It doesn’t work like that.

Three more to go.


Based off this fellow

Trans

When I was four years old, and mom was out for the afternoon volunteering with the church, I snuck into her closet, pulled out her most sparkly and extravagant evening gown, slid into her brightest, tallest shoes, pasted on her reddest lipstick and blackest mascara, strung chain after chain of costume jewels about my limbs, and paraded through the empty hallways looking for all the world like the gaudiest little prince/ss in the long and exalted history of drag queens. This, as far as I can recall, was the first manifestation of my transvestitism, though I didn't learn to call it that until more than a decade later.

Even at the tender and inexperienced age of four, I knew that there was something forbidden about my dress-up act, and hid all traces of it as best I could before my mom arrived home (she still suspected me of rifling through her wardrobe and testing her makeup, but I don't think she guessed the full extent of my transgressions). I infrequently ventured into that delightful closet, saving my excursions for those rare times when my mother left me in the house sans guardian in the form of an aunt or fussy neighbour. Even on these occasions, I got almost as much of a thrill just imagining myself perusing my choices - the simple pistachio-green dress with an empire waist, the peach gown studded with faux pearls about the collar, a veritable prism of skirts. What I loved the most were the shoes - not only for their stylish and elegant shapes, and the mature and refined feeling they elicited when I put them on, but also because they were easily tucked away without a trace whenever I heard a key in the front door. I never asked my mother for permission to play with her clothes, intuiting an answer in the negative, and it was only many years later that I wondered what made me think my activities required such discretion.

Dean the Derelict Dentures' Adventures

Dean was a set of derelict dentures. He had once belonged to a creaky old man who had lost a significant portion of his teeth - to decay, a couple due to a bar brawl, some because he had a peculiar English mouth in which the jaw and number of teeth never seem to be in agreement, one as a memento taken by a particularly deranged ex-girlfriend, and then the rest to make way for the dentures. The old man had alternately kept Dean in his (not as clean a living space as might be desired) mouth, and in a glass next to his bed. Life had been quiet, but Dean had liked it that way, and he did his best to aid the old man in talking, chewing, and other activities that tend to require teeth.

When the old man died, Dean fully expected to be buried with him - surely they wouldn't bury an old man without his teeth? - but Dean was proclaimed too dirty to follow his master to the grave, and the old man was buried with a new set of fake teeth instead. Now unneeded, Dean was tossed unceremoniously into a garbage can. This was a new and quite astonishing set of surroundings for Dean, and he quickly made friends with the nearby tissues, discarded packaging, rubber gloves, and sandwich crusts - though he found that none of them were particularly talkative. Just as he was beginning to make real progress in his budding friendships, Dean and his cohorts were scooped up by the night janitor and heaved into a dumpster.

The dumpster was dark and smelly, but Dean had lived inside an old man's mouth most of his life and was used to this.

The dumpster also contained rats.

Dean did not initially know that there were rats in the dumpster. For a while, he sat in the garbage bag and made polite conversation with the surrounding trash, but the tissues pined for sunshine and open air and besides, Dean was quickly tiring of this particular heap of rubbish. So he gnawed his way out of the garbage bag, and into the dumpster.

Jimmy the baker

It was a bleak and dreary winter in Victoria - persistent rain and grey skies day in and day out - when Jimmy decided to open a bakery. Jimmy had often dreamed of pursuing such an undertaking but had always been discouraged from following through - the economy was bad, baking wasn't manly, and so on - until now. Now, he had found the perfect building (low rent, excellent location, and it came complete with a frilly mauve awning that seemed very bakery-like to Jimmy), he had saved up enough money, and he was completely and utterly sick of working as an outdoor security guard in all the rain and gloom. Besides, Victorians deserved to be delighted by his scrumptious pumpkin pies, delectable apple strudels, and - best of all, and winner of numerous culinary prizes - his shortbread-stuffed cinnamon buns. So Jimmy installed some baking equipment and a quaint but eye-catching sign ("The Baker Next Door"), and opened his bakery.

Jimmy's triple chocolate cakes and fruit tarts (made to order!) were immediately a huge hit. They positively flew off the shelves (though not as gracefully as the angel cakes!). The peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and ladyfingers were very popular with children, and the intricately decorated gingerbread people sold very well, even though Christmas was still weeks away. Very soon, Jimmy realized that he would need some help in the bakery - he simply could not bake fast enough, and man the till. So he put up a "Help Wanted" sign in the window, and wondered who might apply to Victoria's newest bakery.

Very soon, applications came flooding in: students needing a part-time job (mostly girls who were too made-up for Jimmy's liking), middle-aged ladies on their second or third career, single mothers, hippies, punks, goths, and one man who wouldn't have looked out of place in a Colgate commercial. Jimmy interviewed them all.

Most of them would probably have been perfectly adequate employees, but Jimmy knew that he would be spending a lot of time with them and besides, he didn't want his bakery to be just adequate. The made-up girls made Jimmy feel uncomfortable, the middle-aged ladies reminded him of his mother (who was no good at baking, and who was also very strict and terrible at maths), the hippies smelled funny and Jimmy feared that their long locks would find their way into the cake batter, the punks were too angry, the goths too depressed, and the man who wouldn't have looked out of place in a Colgate commercial would, Jimmy felt, look out of place in a bakery.

But in amongst all of these less-than-perfect bakery applicants was Marie. Marie was perhaps in her early thirties, and handed in her application wearing cat's eye glasses and a sweater out of the 80s. At her interview, she wore not a dress shirt and pants, but a long skirt emblazoned with bold and bright begonias, and a modest white tee. She smiled at Jimmy honestly during the whole conversation, keeping her hands folded in her lap in a motherly fashion (she did in fact have a child, who at that particular moment was pouring sand from one container into another, or some similar activity that toddlers undertake in preschool), but also keeping a twinkle in her eye that suggested that she was not always this passive and calm. Jimmy liked her. He wasn't quite sure why, but he liked her very much. She was a touch bohemian, but also modern. She was raising a young child by herself and was out of work, but did not feel sorry for herself. She seemed not to take baking too seriously like some of the middle-aged ladies, but she did not look at the job as temporary and only a means to make money, as many of the students seemed to do. Out of courtesy to the other applicants, Jimmy completed all of the interviews, and then he hired Marie.

Marie was not a particularly accomplished baker, but this was not because she had no skill at baking and instead had more to do with the fact that she had never really tried before. Jimmy did not let this fact deter him, and began her baking education immediately. As he had suspected, she was a natural. They both took great joy in turning out her first perfectly formed pie crust or crême brulée.

With a second person to aid in baking and at the till, sales at The Baker Next Door continued to increase. Jimmy was delighted, and Marie was as well. They soon had many regular customers, even some who had applied for Marie's job - Jimmy was glad they bore her no grudge; but how could they, when he made the best scones, croissants, and birthday cakes in the entire city?

Of course, reviews began to appear. First a quick mention on a Victorian's blog, linked to on Twitter, then a feature in Monday Magazine, and a blurb in the TC. Victoria's culinary magazines began to take notice, and customers started claiming that Jimmy made the best peanut butter cups or the best nougat in town. Jimmy smiled humbly whenever one of his loyal customers brought the latest praise to his attention; Jimmy had not in fact tasted the peanut butter cups at every bakery in the city, and could therefore not say that his were the best, but he was still tickled pink that people thought that he was the best at anything.

One day, Jimmy was busy pouring batter into a muffin tray when Colleen, one of his loyal customers, pushed open the door with its customary jingle, and announced to him, sliding a newspaper clipping across the counter towards him, "There is to be a cookie-baking competition. You must enter, and you shall win!" (Colleen was very definitive like this.)

"Ah, is there?" said Jimmy (he knew that Colleen would elaborate whether he said anything or not, but thought it more courteous to acknowledge her statement verbally before she continued).

"The prize is $10,000, plus your cookies will be added to the menu at Vista 18, you'll have a full-page spread in the Times colonist; and, of course, you get bragging rights to having the best cookies in all of Victoria! (Though those of us in the know have been conscious of this little bit of information for some time now.)" Colleen pulled a small mirror from her atrociously large purse and dabbed at her face without actually accomplishing anything, replaced the mirror in her purse, and continued, as Jimmy knew she would. "The submission deadline is in three weeks, then the baking competition actual is going to be a week before Christmas, at Camosun College. I suggest you enter your ladyfingers - your gingerbread is, of course, superb, but you don't want to make it look like you're following a Christmas theme, particularly if everyone else does; and your peanut butter chocolate chip cookies are an absolute delight, but they've been done a million and one ways already and besides, what about people with allergies? So I think the ladyfingers would be the way to go - sweet and deceptively simple; they literally melt in your mouth. And, in complete and utter honesty, they are indeed the best cookies I have ever had. And you know I've tried more than my fair share of cookies!" (Colleen was more than a tad overweight.) Colleen continued on in this manner for some time, while Jimmy continued to nod and pour batter.

Edith

written some time in 2008... no idea when!

Edith wasn't sure why, that Wednesday evening, she felt the need to double check that she had locked the doors, firmly shut the windows, and closed all the blinds. Perhaps it had something to do with the great gusts of wind that made the window panes stammer and the oak trees crackle, or perhaps the house was feeling particularly uncomforting after the kitchen light had burnt out the day before, and Edith had forgotten to stop for a new one on her way home from work. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that Edith was living on her own for the first time in eight years, and she still wasn't quite used to having only Rufus the calico cat for company. Perhaps it was all of these things, but more probably it had something to do with Stan. Edith wasn't sure if his name really was Stan, but it seemed a fitting name for the rakish, unkempt, mouse-like man who had been an incessant figure in Edith's life for the past three months. Stan the Stalker.

At first, Stan's obsession with Edith had seemed innocent enough. She had noticed him one day on the bus ride home from her job at a minor advertising company. He had stood at the doors, an intense look in his eyes, light brown hair ruffled in more of a I-shower-once-a-year way than an I'm-a-teddy-bear-hug-me way. Edith saw his laser-sharp gaze settle on each person as they got on the bus, and again as they got off. It unnerved her.

The next day, Stan was on the bus again, in the same place, with the same intense look on his face. There were plenty of seats available by the time Edith got off, but Stan never budged. He just stood and stared.

A few weeks went by, and Stan became a regular on Edith's ride home. She wondered vaguely where he got on and off, but mostly ignored him and read her book.

One particularly rainy day, Edith got off the bus, and Stan followed. She registered this change in routine, and kept him in her peripheral vision, curious as to his destination. After a couple of blocks, he turned down a side street, and slightly disappointed for no particular reason, Edith walked the rest of the way home alone.

Most days, Stan was on the bus when Edith got on, and still there when she got off. But every so often, he would get off at her stop. After a few of these occurrences, Edith decided to keep track of the days that Stan got off with her. She liked finding order, patterns in life. But after a couple of months of drawing vaguely Stan-like squiggles in her planner, no pattern was forthcoming. Edith stopped wondering what Stan did when he left the bus, but she still kept track of his routine.

One day, Stan followed Edith a block farther than usual. When he didn't disappear down his regular street, Edith turned round and looked at him. He looked straight back, then a split second later, ducked away, startled. Edith turned around again a block later, but he was gone.

After this incident, two whole weeks went by without Stan getting off the bus. Edith wondered if she had somehow scared him, with that backwards glance. But three days later, Stan once again was behind Edith for a few blocks on her walk home, then slinked off down the same side street as usual.

All this, of course, was trivial, a minor amusement at the end of another tedious day. Edith never thought about Stan for more than a few seconds before burying herself in her latest book. And she never thought that there would ever be anything more about Stan for her to ponder apart from Where will he get off today? and When will he ever shower?, closely followed by Does he even own a shower? and Maybe he's homeless... nah. Until one day...


It was another rainy day, and when Edith took her seat on the bus she thought of nothing but wiping the rain off her glasses and miserably contemplated how wet she would get on her walk home. Stan was on the bus as usual, but his presence barely registered. Edith blew her nose with gusto, wiped her eyes, and gazed out the bus window glumly. When the bus got to her stop, she got off reluctantly, and Stan followed. Edith briefly wondered if he only got off in particularly bad weather, then abandoned the thought and went back to being miserable. She trudged all the way home, unlocked the door, and stepped inside, water shedding everywhere. Only as she turned to close the door behind her did she notice Stan staring at her from across the street, a few meters away. Their gazes locked, Edith blinked in astonishment, and then he was gone.

Edith pulled off her sodden shoes, peeled off her socks, and scurried into her bedroom. What had Stan been doing in her street? Was he following her? Had she imagined him? I'm just being self-important and paranoid, Edith thought. I'm sure it had nothing to do with me. She went to bed that night thinking of Stan, but not coming up with any satisfying reasons for his appearance in her street.

The next day was clear. Stan was on the bus as always, and was still there when Edith got off. It must have been nothing, Edith thought.

Then the notes began to arrive. Reminders to go to the drycleaners, lists of books to read or movies to rent, short poems about cats and vacuum cleaners, observations about the day's events. All on scraps of paper, in the same handwriting, sometimes hurried, sometimes neat and precise, placed in her mailbox at all hours of the day, occasionally with her morning post, but often there when Edith got back from work, or even late at night, when earlier in the evening the mailbox had been empty. Edith never saw them delivered. She asked the mailman about them one day, but he had never seen them. Edith could only assume they were from Stan, somehow, for the notes had begun appearing only a few days after Stan's mysterious presence in Edith's street. And now, Stan never got off the bus at Edith's stop.

Edith wondered whether to confront him about the notes, but she couldn't build up the courage. After all, she told herself, she was probably being silly, coming up with this ridiculous fantasy life in which she received notes from strange men from the bus in the dead of night. For all she knew, she could be writing the notes herself, in her sleep, and the only mystery to be solved was how to get a better night's sleep. But still, the handwriting. The handwriting was not her own.

Bread

12/24/2008

If only this were a sweet juicy fish, she thought and passed the bread to her sister.

If only this were a steaming piece of pumpkin pie, thought her sister and passed the loaf to her other sister.

If only this were the wateriest most delectable piece of watermelon, thought the third sister and passed it to the youngest sister.

I like bread, thought the youngest sister, and ate her fill. The bread was freshly made that morning by their maid, Anna. Anna had been their maid since before they were born, and had always baked them bread that was just soft enough, just sweet enough, and very filling. Over the years, the girls' family had entreated her to make new dishes, but after burnt pot roast, lumpy raw mashed potatoes (Unmashed potatoes, one of the sisters had said despondently.), a pheasant that seemed altogether too corpse-like to be edible, and something that tasted strange and came only a day after the death of the family dog Padro (He was a good dog, said the second youngest sister, but not a good dish.), they gave up entirely, and either cooked for themselves, or just ate bread.

Of course, after decades of Anna's lone dish, the sisters yearned desperately for other food, and often hardly pecked at the latest loaf. They pined and whined, and bartered at every opportunity with the men who came by with carts laden with gastronomic delights. But the youngest sister, though she would barter and cook alongside her sisters, would always eat Anna's bread. Because of this, she grew stronger than her sisters (though never portly), and also had more money as she was not in the habit of trying every new food that came past their house.