Joe College A Novel by Tom Perrotta

Author:Tom Perrotta [Perrotta, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Published: 2006-09-19T06:00:00+00:00

You entered the warehouse through a curtain of heavy strips like the ones that slap your car at the car wash, and found yourself in a no-frills supermarket specializing in snack cakes, soft drinks, and paper goods, all of which you loaded onto a flat-bottom cart big enough to sleep on. When you had what you needed, the owner’s daughter, a hot number named Sheila who dressed like every day was Saturday night, tallied up your order and sent you on your way with a sweet smile and a few words of encouragement. No money changed hands in the mornings; the whole point was to grab what you needed, throw it on the truck, and get the hell out of there. There would be time enough to settle up at the end of the day, when everybody had cash in their wallets and a little more room to breathe. Besides, Sheila’s father didn’t have to worry too much about getting paid. If you wanted to drive a lunch truck in central Jersey, you had better stay on Pat Swenson’s good side. Either that or make your sandwiches by hand and buy your Tastykakes at the A & P.

The truck was pretty much cleaned out on Monday mornings, so I loaded up on baked goods, box after box of icing-striped danishes sweating inside their crinkly cellophane, tiny packs of Rich Frosted Mini Donuts, individually wrapped buttered rolls, Mell-O fruit pies, peanut butter crackers, and sandwich creme cookies, not to mention the all-important milk for the coffee—whole, skim, and half-and-half—plus some SnakPak cereals, a big jar of nondairy creamer, a three-week supply of plastic stirrers, two cartons of cigarettes—one Marlboro, one Kool—and a dozen copies of The Daily News. Sheila barely glanced at my haul; instead she looked me up and down, smiling like I’d just offered her a surprise gift. She was wearing a black polka-dot miniskirt and sheer black stockings, an outfit my mother would have said she didn’t have the legs for, but even so, she was a welcome vision inside that drab warehouse full of wooden pallets and metal racks and cardboard boxes. The only other women in the place were the sandwich makers, four sweet-tempered middle-aged ladies who seemed completely at peace with the fact that they had to wear plastic bags on their heads for eight hours at a stretch.

“Oh my,” Sheila said, scribbling mechanically on the pad attached to her clipboard. “You get better-looking every time I see you.”

“Thanks.” I might have been more flattered if I hadn’t heard her say the exact same thing a minute earlier to Ted McGee, the three-hundred-pound operator of Fat Teddy’s Belly-Bustin’ Chow Barge. “You’re looking pretty good yourself.”

Her expression grew momentarily uncertain, and I wondered if my compliment had broken through her thick shell of boredom to the actual person inside.

“You know what?” she told me. “You’re half a dozen short on the buttered rolls.”

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