Chapter 2 – Call for Obstruction

So far, Barry was cut off on the highway causing him to rear-end a courier van. When he can’t find the driver he calls the phone number on the back of the van and ends up accepting a job offer over the phone instead of exchanging insurance.

Up ahead, I spy a red warehouse, off to the right, just like Margery had described. A huge OTG Courier logo covers half the building, so it’s obvious, I’m in the right place.

Three of those huge car carriers with half a dozen OTG vans on the trailers are blocking the parking lot behind the warehouse. The vans that had already been delivered were parked every which way across the lot, leaving no place close from me to park. If my luck gets any worse today . . . .

I get out of my truck and zigzag through the mayhem until I reach the office entrance. I can see through the door that the place is deserted, but Margery said she’s always here so I go inside.

The place is like no post office or an overnight delivery drop-off I’ve ever seen. Instead, it’s like I’ve walked through a time warp, into a kitchen during the nineteen seventies. The place reminds me a little of my grandmother’s basement, decorated with dark brown paneling on windowless walls. And the dark, stained cabinets make the place appear dimly lit despite the overhead florescent lighting.

I have to squint to read the labels on the bottles on the gold-colored counter top, right beside a dented green refrigerator. Are those what I think they are? Liquor bottles? Maybe that’s why Margery didn’t understand I’d hit one of her vans. She’s drunk. By the look of the oblong table in the middle of the kitchen, papers scattered across the surface, the place could be run by a drunk. That and smoke rising from the ashtray atop the messiness is evidence she’s the sort to have bad habits.

“Barry. You made it.”

I jump, nearly out of my skin.

To my left, I glance downward at a hunchbacked crone with flaming red and orange streaked hair. It’s combed upwards, similar to a troll doll, adding a few inches to her less than five feet of height. The woman likes orange, also the color of her spandex pants and oversized Broncos sweatshirt.

“Margery.” She reaches out to shake and I take her hand. An electrical shock crackles and surges up my arm and I clutch up at first, then pull backward and retract my hand.

She winks. “You find the warehouse okay?” A crooked smile turns up one side of her puckered mouth, revealing dark nicotine and coffee stained teeth.

I nod my head while stroking my still vibrating knuckles. I can’t stop myself from staring into her yellowish, bloodshot eyes, lined with charcoal and smeared up to the eyebrow with a bright green, greasy-looking eye-shadow.

Margery points in the direction of the kitchen and leaves me standing alone.

I pause. All the paper that had been scattered across the table is now a neatly stacked half a foot high with a pen on top.

“C’mon, have a seat,” she says forcefully.

There was something about her annoyed tone, the same as it had been during our phone conversation, that made me want to comply. I scurry to join her at the table.

The remnants of the still smoldering cigarette butt falls into the ashtray. Margery picks it up like it’s a joint, places it between pursed lips and inhales deeply. The bright orange tip crackles and snaps until it fires against her index finger and thumb. Only when there’s no more smoke to draw in does she drop the butt into the ashtray and tamp her thumb down on the red-hot tip. I wave away the aroma of tobacco mixed with burning flesh that fills the air.

“Before you can work for us, you’ll have to agree to a few employment terms and sign our standard contract,” she says, then pauses and licks ash off her blackened fingertips with a long, thin tongue much like a serpent’s. “All our drivers sign ‘em.”

Bile rises to the back of my throat. I swallow hard. “That’s the contract?” My voice squeaks as I point at the tall stack of paper.

“What else would it be?” She sighs, then falls back in her chair and laces her fingers together over her stomach.

“It seems excessive. What sort of employment agreement?”

“Standard stuff for salary, liability and such.” She takes a drag from a newly lit cigarette that must have appeared out of nowhere. “Top copy’s for salary, fifty an hour and time-and-a-half overtime.”

Fifty an hour just to drive a van. I’ve never earned that much testing software and I’ve got a Master’s Degree in Computer Science. Something’s off. I don’t like the idea of signing so much paperwork just to drive a van. “What sort of liabilities?”

“Nothing to worry about honey. We just want to make sure things are taken care of in case something happens.”

“You mean accidents?”

“Driving for us can be dangerous, among other things.”

“So these are like insurance forms?”

“Sure, honey. Like insurance forms.” That creepy grin curls up one side of her mouth again while the cigarette hangs off the other.

“So, if anything happens to me, I’ll be taken care of?”

“Oh Yeah.” She picks up the pen and holds it out. “We’ll take care of you.”

I lift my hand but hesitate to reach out and take it at first. I want to ask her about the potential risks that come along with driving for OTG. On the other hand, I would sell my soul to the Devil rather than move back in with my mother.

Margery impatiently waves the pen in front of my nose. “Right there at the bottom, honey, sign your name.”

I can’t reach for the pen or even move though. My eyes remain focused on the nib as it continues to sway left and right like a pendulum. In the background, Margery duplicates into two hovering heads, then three, then four as if I were peeping through the hole of a kaleidoscope. The more she multiplies, the blurrier my vision gets, until all the color merges into a hollow blackness.

* * *

All at once, the room comes back into focus.

“All done,” Margery says as she pulls the tall stack of papers to her side of the table.

“I signed?” As I speak, I let out a loud, wet and smoky belch from deep down within my gullet. It’s the same feeling I get after eating an entire large sized pizza. I jump to my feet, knocking the chair backward to the floor. “What did you do to me?”

Margery stands and picks up the contract. “Be here tomorrow morning at six o’clock sharp.”

“I don’t think so,” I tell her, coughing-up more smoke.

“We’ll see about that.” Margery dashes through a nearby door and slams it shut behind her.