Moving Violations

Moving Violations

I’m going tell you this story because I think you should know. There are things in this world that you understand to be normal and run of the mill but there are other things, things going on below the surface that you need to be aware of. I want to tell you my story about one of those things, one of those times that stuff below the surface came to light for me. It all started on one of our busier nights at the local pizza shop that I used to work at.



I worked at Speedy Pizza though sometimes it was anything but speedy. We were a hole in the wall pizza delivery place, third in a small chain of Speedy Pizzas, that competed with not only Pizza Hut, which resided down the street but Papa John’s which was about a quarter of a mile across town. We didn’t do that bad of a business and sometimes it seemed like we did an even better business than some of the major chains that I already mentioned. This particular night was a Monday, the night of Monday night football where every joe schmo wants a pie delivered to his door step so that he doesn’t have to get his fat lazy ass off the couch that sits in front of the good old television. It would be a damn shame if he (or she if the case may fit) would miss that pivotal play and ruin the whole game for him. So that’s why we always schedule an extra driver on Mondays. It was my turn to be the extra driver. Chad had been out of town and Matt wanted to spend time with his girlfriend. Since I was in town and since I didn’t have a steady girlfriend, I mean I had a few girls that I fucked on the side but none of them wanting the nightly phone call and needing to know where I was every minute of the day. So it was my turn. I did it graciously. I didn’t mind. Monday night football went well with beer and alcohol and any driver worth his salt knew that if he played the game on his radio and made comments when delivering pizza then you can always squeeze a dollar or two more out of the tip at the door. Hell there were plenty of times when they had the tip ready for you but after bullshitting with them for a few minutes about the game they would disappear inside and come out with some more money. Still it was busy that night. We were quoting an hour on the phone but in all reality it was probably taking about an hour and fifteen minutes to an hour and half to get their pizza out to them. Hell for a while there it was so stressful that me and Jay, the skinny greasy fuck that worked inside, took a five minute break out in the back of the parking lot to share a joint. Just enough to take the edge off the night. It was after that it started getting weird for me. Bob, a slightly portly guy who had been my manager for the last two years, had a pretty good idea what me and Jay were doing outside but he never gave me any kind of grief about it. I don’t think Bob ever smoked but when it came down to it he was a pretty cool guy and used to drink with us down at the local bar after close. If you got your shit done and didn’t piss off the customers too badly then Bob let us do pretty much anything that we wanted. When me and Jay got done smoking we went back inside to find Bob in a bit of a fit. He had been trying to find me for the last few minutes because he had two deliveries that needed to go out. Both in opposite direction and both of them about an hour old. I just clapped him on the back, told him not to worry, and that I would take care of it. I knew that streets that I could speed on. Most of the time if you had the car topper on the cops really didn’t give you too much shit. So I grabbed my two Speedy Pizza warmer bags and headed out to my car. Now I know what you’re saying, this seems like a normal Monday night so far. And it did. But what happened next I was not expecting and when it happened it took a while for me to believe it. Now you have to understand that making a left turn out of Speedy was not entirely the easiest thing to do. Some of the drivers were crazy and didn’t give a shit and just flew out of the drive and come hail or high water they were bent in nosing in on the traffic. I was more conservative. I liked to drive behind Okay Laundry and Sweet Revenge (the bulk candy place right next to us though I never found anything vengeful about it). As I started to drive behind the store for some reason I found myself looking at the yellow painted metal post that was placed about the gas meter to supposedly keep people from foolish backing into it. I watched it until I was almost past it when amazingly it seemed to move. Now when I say move I don’t mean that it got up and waved at me or did a dance. No it seemed to move through the asphalt like a periscope for a submarine. It was like it was moving through water. There was no wake of destruction behind it. No rut where it had been dragged, no hole where it had been. It was like a shark’s fin cutting through the surface of the water. It moved right in front of my car. I barely had time to slam on my brakes and cut to the right slightly grazing it and sending a crease up the left side of my car. I got out and inspected the damage. Small scrapes of yellow paint could be seen in the fold that now presided on my passenger side starting from the just beyond the passenger door and reaching to the back rear wheel well.

         “Fuck.” Is all I uttered as I inspected the damage. I cupped my head in my hands and started to think about what the parents were going to say. They had co-signed for the car. It was over four years ago and it only had one year left of payments but they had always been on my case about keeping it nice because they weren’t about to sign for another car anytime in the near future. God fuck, did I really see that fucking thing move? That’s the second thing that went through my head. How was I going to explain this? Could I really tell people that this stupid pole moved in front of my car? I didn’t think so. Especially since I just got done smoking. Hell that shit might have even been laced with something. I heard of shit like that. Here’s a free one on me and make sure to come back to me when you want some of the same, I have plenty of it. Lacing your weed with something to make it more addictive. How fucking low could you get. Shit now what am I supposed to do? Should I even chance driving anymore? Bob would be pissed at me for flaking out on him. He knew what me and Jay were doing and I would probably not have a job if I went back and told him that I couldn’t make the deliveries. Sorry Bob but not only can’t I  take these two but I got to go right now even though there’s probably three more waiting and as equally late. No. I can’t do that. I’ll just have to buck up and meet the challenge. I didn’t mind driving stoned but when it came to anything heavier or just getting drunk I usually tried not to do it. But still I didn’t have a choice. So I got back in my car and went along my way.

         Mister Burns was nice enough and even handed me a five dollar tip even though it took me about twenty minutes past the promised time to get his pizza to him. The other delivery, which was to Arborgaster, was a little less pleasant. Instead of the guy answering the door it was his wife who was of course not watching the game and apparently had nothing else to do except for sitting around and waiting for the delivery boy while watching the clock. At least I didn’t get stiffed, Even Mrs. Arborgaster handed me an extra dollar and told me to keep the change. All the way through out the two deliveries I kept my eyes peeled for anything that appeared out of place. Nothing. I saw a cop make a u-turn and follow me. My blood ran cold for a minute until he turned down one of the side street finally turning on his flashing blue and reds. Still all the poles stayed in their places. No orange cones dancing in front of me. No trees reaching down to grab me. I don’t know whether that was a relief or not. I mean here I was supposedly tripping on what I don’t know. I just got done hallucinating a pole moving yet nothing else out of the ordinary happened. Secretly I would have been slightly happier if something fucked up did happen. I mean I’m not looking for a full out trip here. No. If my customers started melting away or if I started to drive without benefit of a car then I would have thrown in the towel and taken the termination. It wouldn’t have been worth it. But still I think that I would have been happy if I saw a cat flying through the air or the other cars out on the road driving without wheels. Still nothing, it was as if I was stone cold sober.

         I had made it back to the shop where Bob gave me a strange look and then handed me a decent three bagger. They were pretty much in the same area give or take a mile or two. I was still a little nervous and still a little high. All I wanted to do is finish out my day, go home and pack a bowl with some good weed and get totally baked. Still, I had two hours left of my shift and although the orders were slowing down it looked like I would be on the road the rest of my shift. So again I resolved to buck up and take it like a man. After all it was just one little hallucination. Maybe that was going to be it. I would definitely be asking Jay who supplied that shit to him tomorrow afternoon, but for now it looked like the worse was over. Or so I thought. So there I was, with my three deliveries, stopped at the light at Kings Boulevard and Lotus Street. The light had turned green so as any typical driver would do I gunned it. Now it was almost instantaneous. The horn started to blare and I heard someone brake like there was no tomorrow. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, he was coming up on me like he didn’t even see his red light. I hit my brakes and skidded to a halt right in the middle of the intersection. I rolled down my window and turned down the game on the radio to hear this guy start to howl at me.

         “What the fuck are you doing?” yeah how witty was that. I just sat there with a dumb expression on my face and pointed up at the stoplight that I was now parked under. I looked up as if to confirm what I knew to be true. What I found was not only was unexpected but terribly frightening at the same time. From where I had stopped I could see both sides of the light which were both green. No shitting. It was giving us both the right of way. The next instant the light going my way flickered and turned red as if to say: Here shit head, not only did I trick you and cause you to almost wreck your car but I’m going to cover my tracks while I’m at it. I actually rubbed my eyes with the knuckles of my hands, perhaps clearing my vision and correcting what I thought I had seen. The guy in the other car continued to scream while I did this. Shit I can’t sit here forever wondering how this happened. I got to move it. So I let off the brake and eased my way through the intersection to my next delivery. I had two more to go but by this time I was really freaking out. Shit man, it had been about an hour since I smoked and by now I think all this freaky shit had scared me straight so I really wasn’t blaming it on the weed anymore. But what the fuck was happening to me. I mean you hear all the time how people can go instantly crazy and start seeing shit. At least I think I’ve heard that. But it wasn’t like I had a real bad life or anything. Hell the most stress I had in my life was making a car payment and if I could get into some little girls panties by the end of the night. I think it might be something about a chemical imbalance in your brain but could it really just start over night? What else did I have to look forward to? Fuck I started to get really scared and I thought that after getting done with these next two deliveries I would go back to Bob and tell him that I wasn’t feeling good. Maybe tell him that I puked on the side of some road and try to leave early. Yeah, I thought that maybe that was the best idea that I had all night. Still I think someone had other plans for me. It was okay for the next delivery. Mister Brown is a kind of semi regular and when he handed me my money he just looked at me and asked if everything was okay.

         “Shit son, you look as pale as a ghost” he told me.

         “Yeah, no I’m fine.” I told him back. “I think that I might be coming down with something.” And that was easy to fake because I really did feel like I was. I was clammy and cold. I had beads of sweat running down my back even though I was shivering. He took an extra dollar out of his wallet and handed it to me telling me that I had better take care of that.

         “Yes sir, I will. I’m going to see if Bob will let me off early.”

         “Well if he gives you a hard time then you have him call me and I’ll give him what for.” Mister Brown smiled at me in a good-natured way. He was always a sweet old guy and he always tipped pretty good.

         So I stepped off his porch and started to get in my car when the street light flickered, giving off a loud and sinister buzzing sound before going out completely. I stood there for a moment and watched as all the street lights, one by one, all turned off as if in a chain reaction. I just stood there dumb struck for a moment and then just threw myself into my car. Fuck the last delivery. Bob can fire me if he wants to but I wasn’t going to take this shit anymore. No more craziness. At that moment, smoking more pot sounded like the most unappealing thing that I could do. I was just going to go home, strip, and pull the blankets over my head. Maybe I could sleep this shit off. So I slipped the key into the ignition and set on my way back to Speedy Pizza. I started down the street doing about ten miles per hour and even though all the street lights were off I could still see through the darkness that all the mailboxes were facing me. As I would pass one it would turn with me as if it were watching me. Maybe even calling ahead and telling the fucking stop sign to hide itself. Every single mailbox did this. I crept down the street and watched as they turned to watch me, swiveling on their base and eventually return to their original position before I ever happened upon them. Not only that but I watched in my rear view mirror and as I traveled down the street all the street light started to come back on. It was as if I was in a bubble of darkness and it was just following me wherever I went. I started to get really frightened and wanted to punch it and fly down the road. Going ten miles per hour was for the birds and I knew that the more that I stayed in the car the more that I was going to get freaked out. I pushed on the gas a little just to see what would happen and the road itself went crazy. It started to snake out in front of me. I watched as the curb started rise and fall, grow and recede. I stopped completely for a second and the road stopped moving. I rolled down my window and started to yell.

         “What the fuck do you want from me?” I asked the quiet night. Somewhere from a distance I could hear some teenage kids start to laugh. “What the fuck do you want from me!?!” I yelled tearing my throat and making it feel raw. A light came on in one of the houses and a door flew open. I heard someone say that they wanted me to shut the fuck up and then the door closed with a slam. I started to laugh. I gripped the steering wheel and just laughed. As the minutes grew longer I started to wail with laughter. I laughed until my guts hurt and there tears streaming from my eyes. After a few more minutes I finally regained my composure and wiped the tears away with the heel of my hand. How the fuck was I going to get out of this? So I started to lightly push the gas again and I started to crawl down the street at my original ten miles per hour. For a while it seemed like everything was back to normal. That was until I made it to the end of the street. I was on Spring Avenue, which should intersect with Dallas Terrace. Instead when my headlights lit up the road sign I read Cowboy Way. Now I had been delivering for Speedy for about three years and I’ve lived in this godforsaken city for a total of seventeen and when I tell you that there has never been a Cowboy Way then you can take that to the bank. Still there it was, right in front of me. I just sat there for a minute before making a right turn. Might as well as keep going. If I was crazy then I might as well as just go with it. I followed Cowboy Way around a bend and it connected to a street called Bluejay Place. Again I know that there isn’t any Bluejay Place. Still I couldn’t stop now so I just kept on driving. I drove for what felt like an hour, my dash clock told me that it was only twenty minutes, following streets and roads that I had never heard of. I drove past this big building with the sign out in front proclaiming it to be the city hall. A little further down I passed this huge ass statue of this guy holding a dove. Underneath it was a plaque that I really couldn’t make out but I’m guessing it was probably the guy’s name. With each minute I grew more frightened, tired and weary. I had had enough craziness for the night and all I wanted to do was make it back home where I could tell my parents that I was indeed crazy and that I needed to see a doctor in the morning. Still, even though I was totally freaking out by this time I was still under control. It wasn’t until I saw the road sign that said: Kill Brian and the intersecting road sign that remarked:  Kill Him Good that I totally lost it. Even though I was a stop sign and I saw a car coming the other way I just fucking slammed on the gas and jumped through the intersection throwing caution to the wind. At that very moment the road started to shimmer and blur and the next thing I knew I was driving straight for a telephone pole. Even though I braked I think I still hit it at about forty. Thank God the airbag deployed or I would have probably taken off half of my head. As it was I got a slight concussion and the seat belt left bruises that were printed on my chest for about a week straight. When the cop started to fill out the report he asked me what I was thinking. I started off by telling him that it wasn’t my fault. He followed with a skeptical statement; Yeah and I suppose the pole just jumped out in front of you. I laughed at him and told him that no, this one didn’t but the one before did.

         I had spent over night in the hospital and a week straight in the psychiatric ward. They put me on all kinds of good drugs and after a while I learned how to play the game. With every new drug I would pretend that it actually did help me. Still I knew the real truth. It wasn’t a chemical imbalance. It wasn’t that I spontaneously turned crazy. No it took me a little time but I finally figured it out. Somehow I had made the city angry. I did something, what I don’t know, and the fucking city had it’s revenge on me. After that night I never got behind the wheel of a car again. I mostly stay home but when I do go out I either take the bus or just walk. I still get lost from time to time but I simply call home and have the parents pick me up. So that’s my story. I tell you because I think you should know. I just want to warn you. The city is alive and if you don’t watch out you may do something to piss it off. Please be careful because the city can hold a long grudge.