Once inside I don't get the two seconds to weasel my way behind the counter for a sip off my watery soda; the boss is leaning across it, pushing a box into my arms, waving the yellow ticket in my face like an emergency flag flapping in a force ten hurricane. He barks above the whipping wind, "You know where Fenton is? You know where Fenton Street is?!"

"Of course I know where Fenton Street is," I drawl back in disdain. "The Boulevard of Broken Axles. No tips there."

In my childhood my mother always remarked of the small hometown of her childhood that its proverbial other-side-of-the-tracks was always neatly and literally a physical delineation. I find myself living there now and, rumble bump-bump, I know too well that Fenton is the main drag up through skag heaven. Out here the mobile homes lack the tidy orderliness of the planned park at the north end of town--home of the double-wides and concrete foundations and redwood decks built by professionals. Out Fenton the trailers are all sigh and sway, listing and leaning on deflated tires, shored up with cinder blocks. They are sagging aluminum bread boxes sprouting clusters of sheet metal appendages and tar paper shacks like crazy alien hen and chick plants. I picture entire dynasties living under sort of one roof. Even the genuine houses take their clues from the neighbors, aging gracelessly, any original aesthetics destroyed by homemade additions, tacked on bedrooms and dens of pressed board siding left unpainted and apparently unprimed, bulging and weathering in sad tones of grey, the greys of ruins.

If I had my say, but I don't, so I go out and make some money for my man if not myself.

The sun is an hour gone, and with it all the lingering light. I slow to a crawl, whack my flashlight to bring on a beam, then scan the house numbers for a bearing. Odd side this side this street, the five-hundreds still a bit ahead. I pick up the pace past a dozen or so homes. My destination must rest in the final stretch of six before some empty lots, but there's no a porch light lit to save my life.

"You dumb bastards! How the hell do you expect me to find you? By scent? You all smell alike to me!"

My flashlight picks out the shadows of the painted over number on the last house. Pulling into the drive, the house looks empty, until I notice that faint, lethal blue glow from the front room. "Uh oh, black and white. Extra bad news. They're saving all their pennies for living color."

There's a sign of life within, through the picture window, the swath of some show illuminating a lumbering form. The porch light flicks on, a yellow bug bulb. "Thanks a lot, asshole," I answer under the loud idle.

I step out, leaving the door swung wide, open the back and fetch the box from the portable oven. With the door in the way there's no room to get by the car on this side without walking on their lawn, which might offend them, though far worse the risk of stepping on something in the grass much more offensive to me. Instead, I circle behind and around, back up the drive, pirouetting through the headlights on my way to the walk. Before I'm a quarter of the distance to the porch there's a woman out the door rushing upon me. "My, aren't we the hungry one," I wink.

"I dint odor nuttin, I dint odor nuttin, I aint gone pay fer dat!"

Her denial is so vehement and unnecessary it brings immediate suspicion. But what stops me short, shudders my spine, is the absolute nastiness to her tone, totally uncalled for, the petty hatred twisting her face into an even stupider ugliness.

"No way, I dint odor dat shit, I aint fuckin payin fer it."

"Oh. Yea?"

I just study her face, haggard and dumb, hair hanging lank, unwashed. I feel assaulted, but hold my tongue. I'd like to kick in her remaining teeth and be done with it. Probably I'd get in big trouble if I opened the box and slammed the pizza in her face, but it might be worth it. I slip my eyes to the ticket in my free hand, verifying that I already know the address matches the house, the name a misspelling of the one on the mailbox.

"Wud is dat? wud is dat!? huh huh? Lemme see it!"

"Well, same number. Is that your last name?"

"Yea, well, so what! I dint odor dis and sures hell aint gone pay fer it."

"Uhm. Maybe somebody else inside ordered it?"

"Uh uh, no way, no way and uhuhuhuhuhuh I aint payin fer it, no way!"

"Okay. Fine, I'll take it back, no problem."

"Dats right, cause I dint even odor it. And I aint gone pay fer it."

I shrug to turn. That's right, you stupid, stupid dumbfuck excuse for a human. As if I care that the only control you have over your kids is to run out and lie your face off.

"Hey, hey, you. Whur you from?"

"Roadhouse."

"Yea well see, see, I never odor nuttin from dem. When I git pizza, I git Domino's. Dey make it bedder."

I turn without a word and walk back to the car. And if I was from Domino's . . . eh, fuck you! You deserve your life. I put the pizza back in the oven, slam the back door, then get in behind the wheel, closing my door gently. What a waste of time. I just pray I'm not the one who gets stuck trying to peddle it for a couple of dollars up at the college. Kill my tips for the night.

"You! Hey yea you, wait a mint, wudwudwuds it anyway? Wud, uh uh, wud kinds it?"

I spit back flat, "Large Roadhouse Special. Pizza."

"Yea, yea, but wud it got on it?"

"Why do you care?"

"W-w-why maybe I was thinkin I might buy it off you. Cheap. So it dont go waste. Like, five bucks take it or leave it. If I want it, I mean. Like, wudit got on it?"

I laugh and shift and bark out the window, "Nuttin you gone git!"