Dennis was this eager young guy trying to start his own business. He had made a pledge to himself to do anything it took to make his business successful. His business consisted of him delivering groceries by himself on his bicycle. The only problem, as far as his business went, was that even with the high gas prices, trucks could still do his job cheaper and faster.
Early on in the short life span of his business he gained one solid, reliable customer named Stanley. Stanley weighed some 1,200 pounds and by the time he and Dennis hooked up, he couldn't leave his bed. Dennis had to roll his bike right into the man's bedroom and line up the brown paper bags on T.V. trays that were all within arms reach for Stanley.
Stanley ate mostly Snickers bars and potato chips. He drank nothing but two liter bottles of Coke, almost in a single chug (not that Dennis ever witnessed these feats). Dennis found the man very mysterious because he never left any evidence of having consumed food. No candy bar wrappers. No empty potato chip bags. No scent of defecation in the room.
There was plenty of body odor though, in the room. Stuck on the third floor, and with no air conditioner, Stanley spent most of his time in a state of sweltering agony.
"Say Dennis?" he finally said one day. It was the first verbal communication he had ever initiated with Dennis. All his grocery lists were notes scribbled and left on one of the tables. "Could I pay you to put in that air conditioner, maybe, next time you come around?" His voice was amazingly soft and delicate, almost like a girl's voice. It sounded like he had saved his voice since he was five years old.
"Sure, man," said Dennis, hoisting the last paper bag into place. The temperature at that moment was 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Dennis had decided not to do or say anything, until now, about the heat because he did not want to risk embarrassing his best customer. In fact, he worried that Stanley would soon become his only customer, as nobody seemed to care for his service.
He certainly questioned the ethicacy of delivering so much junk food to such a fat man. But he only allowed that doubt to surface briefly from time to time. If he were to seriously consider stopping the practice, he would have had to abandon his work completely.
He believed that if the business could just take off he would be able to do all sorts of good things. Especially for all the Stanleys out there.
Of course he could have lifted the air conditioner into place. It wasn't very big, and he had installed similar units many times before. It would have taken him five minutes, but he decided to do it next time because he wanted to appear busy. As soon as the last bag was in place, he said thank you and asked if there was anything else he could do.
Stanley tightened his lips and indicated a second note on one of the tables. In the center of the note was scrawled:
Please discretely pick up Ms. Julie, from her front steps on the 500 block of South Street.
"Why don't you just call a cab?"
*
Stanley started to worry. It hadn't occurred to him to call a cab because he had forgotten all about them. Dennis was his only point of contact with the outside world. Before Dennis came along, it was his neighbor, Eve, who checked in on him every other day. She was 96 years old when she died the week before. The last thing she did before she croaked was navigate her electric scooter down to the sidewalk and return with one of Dennis's fliers. She set it on Stanley's stomach facing him so he could read it before she returned to her apartment where she thudded out of her scooter and made no more sounds.
Stanley felt incredibly stupid, having asked for such an unreasonable thing. He started breathing heavier than ever and the bottoms of his legs itched terribly. He had to pass gas quite terribly as well, but that would have certainly made things much more unbearable.
"Okay okay," said Dennis. "I was kidding."
*
Dennis could barely read the note and he tried to picture how Stanley could possibly reach the notebook (wherever he kept it) and how he could manage to write. It didn't seem like he could possibly see what he was writing.
What was he going to do with a prostitute anyway? he wondered. Julie sounded like a very blasé name for a prostitute. A little too good, almost girl next door good.
At what he thought was the appropriate block, based on his interpretation of the note, there was no girl named Julie waiting to be picked up on a bicycle. There was nobody at all on this block. If there had been anybody in sight, this block might not have filled him with so much dread and loathing. He was afraid to stay in this area, but in obedience to the pledge he had made to his fledgling business, he rode slowly up the sidewalk. This is bravery, he thought. I am very brave.
Then he heard a voice right next to his head say, "Excuse me, can you help me? Sir can you come here?"
Dennis froze because he expected to be struck in the head or shot. The voice came from behind the bars of a first story window. "I um, I need help, um, moving this T.V." said the voice. "It's really huge!" Dennis could not tell if the voice was male or female, which he found creepy.
"Can you please come inside?"
The living room was extremely small but also neat and sweet smelling. The owner of the voice moved to the center of the small room and sat almost in a yoga position, avoiding the love seat. It was a short little ugly man, wearing mascara and lipstick. His face was powdered pale and his fake mole was a little too big. He kept shifting around as if he had accidentally sat on a piece of glass, so he never quite struck the yoga position.
Dennis crossed and uncrossed his arms a few times, strategizing.
The man gave Dennis a flirtatious eye and quickly turned his head away. "It's in here," he said, climbing to his feet and then striding into the kitchen. He shot Dennis a direct eye contact look as he disappeared out of view. "I want to show you something, um, what did you say your name was?"
Dennis figured by now that there was no T.V.. Most accidents, he knew, took place in the kitchen, because of all the knives and he knew that if he were to scream due to being stabbed, nobody would much care out there in the ghost neighborhood. He did some nervous tapping with his foot. "Dennis," he said, trying to sound tough. "I didn't catch yours?"
The man cat walked out of the kitchen with his shirt already off. His chest was freshly waxed and from his back pocket he produced a business card with nothing on it but his name, number and a lavender scent. His name was Julio but as Dennis turned the card in the light, the o changed to an e and then back to an o.
Julio circled around behind him and ran his fingers across his shoulders.
"Julie?"
*
Stanley's place smelled like rotten meat. Dennis wondered if some raw bacon hadn't fallen out of reach several days ago. "You should have called a cab." The heat was like the inside of a microwave.
Of course Dennis had never delivered anything so healthy as raw bacon, which could only mean that Stanley must have died some time ago! This thought floated briefly through Dennis's mind, but it threatened to completely undermine his business agenda, forcing him to consider diversifying.
"Did somebody die in here?" Julio asked.
"He's in there," said Dennis. "He needs your help moving... a really huge air conditioner."
"You don't say." Julio sat in his yoga position with his legs crossed and his feet on top of his legs. "Can you hear that?" This time he was able to sit still.
Dennis could hear the footsteps of neighbors and a woman's voice scolding a kid or a man or a dog.
"What's dripping in there?"
"Air conditioner. Sometimes they condensate and leak all over the floor." Of course, he still hadn't installed it.
"Whatever it is, it's not my problem."
"Mine either, and I've got other jobs I need to take care of. I have responsibilities."
"I understand. I think I'll be leaving as well. This isn't what I signed up for."
Dennis squeezed his brake levers and slowly walked his bike out of the apartment.
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