Mistakes by the Lake by Brian Petkash

Author:Brian Petkash [Petkash, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Madville Publishing
Published: 2020-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

I latch Sally’s bike to the rack on the front of the bus, climb the steps, dig in my pockets for an old farecard or the two-and-a-quarter that will get me over to Pepe’s. I don’t have it. The driver shrugs, flicks his thumb in my direction. I go to sit, thankful to be floated, but he says, “No fare, no ride.”

I ride this bus three, four times a week. Fucker knows me. The other passengers look out the windows. I am not their business.

His thumb points to the street. The doors close behind me and he pulls away. I smack the doors, yell, “My bike, you fuck.”

I unhook the bike and start the three-mile ride. Not a huge deal, really. I deliver pizzas all over the Yards and Clark-Fulton on this bike, her bike, but I am going to be late.

It’s bad enough to watch the Yards flicker by while on the bus. The big movie-screen windows play a short film of run-down houses, crumbling storefronts, boarded-up buildings, people wearing twenty-year-old clothes, the obvious hookers, the obvious users, the obvious gangs, and all the kids who’d grow up to be in one of those groups. A few churches and iglesias hold tight, but after the scandals even those offer little.

By bike, the same film, but solid, real, three-fucking-dimensional. On one corner, a few kids push each other while they play king-of-the-mountain on a pile of broken concrete. Dangerous game, that.

I chainlock Sally’s bike to the dumpster. Inside, place is empty. Pepe yells the obvious—“You’re late”—from the back office where he likely sits touching himself while watching a Victoria’s Secret show. Or worse. People should not order pizza from Pepe’s Pizzeria. He makes most every pie, Pepe does, unwashed hands and all.

I take my place at the stool behind the counter. The cracked edges of the fake leather dig into my leg. “Yeah, yeah.” I cross my arms on the counter, fold over and rest my head. This place, man, this place.

Pepe’s pizzeria’s been in the same paint-flaking woodframe building for over thirty years. It was Fat Vinny’s Pizza Palace before Pepe bought it, but other than the name change everything had stayed the same.

Wood-paneled walls, dark. Coupled with the one-bulb table lamps and two high windows, the room feels like a morgue. The furniture’s a mash-up of a single hard plastic booth—stolen from a failed Burger King—and wobbly tables with chairs that a blind man could see don’t match. On one corner table rests a deck of cards, a pen, a pad of paper, an endless game. The décor is an odd mix of old bowling and softball trophies, plastic flowers, and pictures of those who had eaten the infamous thirty-inch Pepe’s Special. Numerous drop-ceiling tiles are swollen and stained with water damage, maybe hold a bloated rat or two in their bowl-like bellies. A gumball machine sits beside the counter, untouched, filled with candies that are diamond-hard. A game of chance—for a dollar, customers can move a claw around, try to grasp some shitty prize—rests in one corner.

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