The Delivery Man

by Joe McGinniss, Jr.

“Wait.” Chase pauses. “Just … wait.” But no more words come until he says, “I’ll find somewhere—”

  “I already know a place,” she says.

  “What do you mean you know a place?”

  “On East Charleston,” she says. “Do you know where that is?”

  * * *

  It’s Tuesday morning and the traffic is bad on East Charleston. The top of the Mustang is down and the sun is white and huge and they’re breathing in exhaust fumes and hearing only the other cars and horns and parts of songs coming from the radio. Chase keeps adjusting the vents and trying to point the teeth of them in Julia’s direction so that all the air from the air conditioner is aimed toward her but it’s not making any difference because the air seeping from the vents is warm. Julia wears sunglasses and the same orange long-sleeved T-shirt she slept in even though it’s at least ninety degrees outside. When Chase asks her if she’s hungry Julia reminds him that she can’t eat anything for twenty-four hours before the procedure and Chase apologizes because he keeps forgetting this, which infuriates Julia. At a red light on Bonanza it suddenly occurs to Chase that he did not bring cash and that his American Express card won’t work. “I’m sorry,” he says. “About what?” she snaps. He doesn’t answer, just signals and pulls into the left lane and at the next intersection makes an illegal U-turn and heads back in the direction of the Strip and then turns onto Sahara and then right onto Beverly. He leaves the engine idling and runs inside his mother’s quiet, empty house and takes a single orange-and-white $500 Stardust chip from his dresser, one he hadn’t been able to part with because it was the last one given to him by his grandmother. He drives fast back to the Strip where he stops at the Stardust and walks quickly inside and stands in a slow-moving line until he changes the chip so he can pay for the procedure.

  * * *

  The waiting room of the clinic is crowded with maybe a dozen young girls. When they sign in the receptionist tells them they’re backed up today. They wait ninety minutes. Julia makes eye contact with various girls in the waiting room. She watches them carefully as their names are called. They all seem to walk like they have been through it already. Chase is the only man in the room.

  Julia stares at Chase impassively across the yellow table at California Pizza Kitchen. The restaurant is too bright. The sun pours through the sweeping windows. He has to squint to see her. It’s three o’clock and crowded but Chase isn’t hungry and they just sit in a booth not drinking the two iced teas they ordered. The pain, Julia says, is nearly gone, though it was bad last night. Last night: standing behind a couple arguing in German at Badlands Liquor and Spirits, the woman’s mascara streaking down her pale cheeks; Chase driving back to the apartment through the warm wind with a bottle of Ketel One and a liter of 7Up, looking at the billboard with the male model asking “What Kind of Man Are You?” Chase drank most of the vodka before he passed out at dawn while Julia slept in the bed, moaning in her sleep.

  “We never even tried,” she said when they both woke up and looked at each other.

  The sheen of sweat on Julia’s forehead looks metallic beneath the fluorescent lighting in the restaurant. She keeps staring at Chase.

  “What is it?” he asks.

  Julia says nothing and continues to stare at him.

  Chase pours another packet of sugar into his iced tea and watches as the grains fall to the bottom of the glass. Once they settle he looks back at her.

  “You’ve been in my life for a long time and I feel nothing,” Julia says. “I spent too many hours thinking about us and planning our lives together and right now I feel nothing. I’m not angry. I’m not even sad. When I look at you it’s like you’re not even there.”

  “We can get past this.” But the words come out with almost no conviction.

  She laughs, exasperated. “Don’t talk like that. You sound like a zombie.”

  “I mean it.”

  “It’s just sad when you talk like that,” Julia says. “You sound like your hooker friend and there’s nothing to do but cringe.”

  “I’m sitting here with you now,” he says. “I’m not running from anything.”

  “Maybe,” she says. “Or maybe it just looks like you aren’t.”

  Chase stares at her, his chest tightening. “Nothing is easy, Julia.”

  “Don’t defend this. Not with me. Not now. Don’t defend how this ended up.”

  “Maybe you should figure out why you kept me around as long as you did.”

  The Mustang speeds toward McCarran where Julia’s flight leaves in an hour. Julia tells Chase to slow down. Chase ignores her. Julia says it again. Chase brakes too hard. Julia lurches forward in her seat. He apologizes. She shakes her head as he pulls up to the terminal.

  “Do you really think anyone here cares about you?” she asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I cared about you,” she says.

  “I know.”

  “Did that mean anything to you?” she asks.

  He nods.

  “What did it mean?”

  He loses it. “It meant everything.” He begins to cry uncontrollably.

  Julia gets out. She reaches into the backseat for her bag. “Don’t get up,” she says.

  It was two a.m. when Chase finally fell asleep after coming home from the party. It was Michele who called and woke him. Her voice cracked when she told Chase to come to Bailey’s house. Chase, groggy with sleep, asked Michele what was wrong and Michele finally just said, “Everyone’s gone.” Chase got to Bailey’s before the ambulance did (later, he found out that the driver had gotten lost). The night before—when Chase told Bailey he wanted to go home—Bailey promised that he would look after Carly. There were so many people in the house when Chase left: people he knew from school, kids who knew Carly, kids who would come by the house on Beverly in their new Jettas to pick Carly up, kids who would take Carly to Wet ’n Wild and the Fashion Show Mall and the Desert Breeze Skate Park where they would get high with all the cute skater boys. The place was teeming with her friends and it all seemed safe. Chase left Michele and Bailey and Carly in the master bedroom. They were sitting on a king-size bed in a circle, their score of meth in tiny blue cellophane balls spread out between them like some kind of treasure they had found and were about to split up. There was an eagerness on that bed that was almost infectious, that almost made Chase stay. But he said goodbye and walked through the house and into the night.

  On his way back to the city Chase is thinking: it’s the end of June. It has been six weeks since he moved Michele into the Sun King suite on the twenty-second floor of the Palace. Chase doesn’t know how much he’s made but he has $6,000 in cash at the apartment on Boulder. And he tries not to think about the clinic on East Charleston, the smell of the pale green waiting room or the way Julia looked at him when she disappeared into McCarran. He just wants to make it to his bed in the air-conditioned apartment and cry until he falls asleep and then he’ll figure out what comes next. He passes the billboard, the male model in red underwear asking the question Chase can’t answer. It’s still only June, he thinks.

  Bailey’s white Impala is parked in the gravel lot outside of the complex on Boulder. Chase glances back at it twice on his way up the exposed stairs to his second-floor apartment.

  “Why are you staying?” Bailey is asking. He has a large red welt on the left side of his face and scratches on the pale under-side of his forearm. “There’s nothing going on here. I don’t understand why you haven’t left yet.”

  “What makes you think I’m staying?” Chase asks casually.

  “Because you’re still here,” Bailey says. “But there’s nothing here for you.”

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with me, Bailey,” Chase says. “This has something to do with you, not me. What do you want?”

  “She says I’m abusive and insecure,” Bailey says. “Do you think I’m abusive and insecure?”

  Chase walks to the window and peers outside at the Impala an
d recalls nights riding shotgun around the valley. Michele would be in front between them on the red leather seat. Chase is about to ask Bailey to leave when the phone rings. Chase wants it to be Julia. He wants to see her name and number on the caller ID screen and tell Bailey he’s got to take the call and to get the hell out of his apartment. When Chase sees who it actually is he doesn’t pick up. The phone finally stops ringing, then starts again, another call.

  “Answer it,” Bailey says, glaring at Chase.

  Chase glances back at the display.

  It’s Michele for the second time. Michele knows Chase always checks his caller ID before answering. The third time it rings Bailey walks over to the phone and looks at the caller ID and answers it.

  “He’s busy,” Bailey says and hangs up and looks at Chase. “She’s sorry she can’t talk but she’s feeling a little shaky right now. She’s not herself.”

  Bailey scans the apartment. The kitchen is spare: a microwave, a toaster oven Chase never uses, red and blue plastic cups. An old Sony nineteen-inch color television he’s had since college. The only thing relatively new is an HP desktop.

  “How much has she given you?” Bailey asks.

  “Not enough.”

  Bailey takes another look around the apartment. “You really don’t have shit.” Bailey considers something. “So you probably banked it. So you probably gave it to your girlfriend to invest. You probably told her you won it. Or maybe you lied and actually told her you sold a painting. When is that lame show you’re in?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “And after the show?” Bailey asks. “Will you be leaving then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Bailey’s eyes are small and bloodshot. “There’s this theory that says every seven years—” he starts.

  “You already told me.” Chase closes his eyes for a long time and asks, “How is Rachel’s place working out?”

  Bailey gazes at the floor. He makes a noise that is noncommittal. After a long pause he asks, “Did you think it wouldn’t matter whose side you took?”

  “I don’t know what you’re asking me.”

  “You drive girls in your sister’s Mustang because I offered the job to you,” Bailey says patiently. “I chose to give you money to tide you over because we have a history. And then you try to convince Michele to fuck me over. Is that your role in this thing?”

  Chase shrugs.

  “I love Michele,” Bailey says. “I’m serious. I love her.”

  “That’s funny,” Chase says. “I assumed you thought she was a thieving bitch and made you feel like shit because you’re not me.”

  “That hurts, bro.”

  “It was supposed to.”

  “How many girls do you and Michele have?” Bailey asks.

  “Which ones are on your team?”

  “Five,” Chase says immediately. The directness surprises Bailey. “But now she doesn’t know because they’re all playing games and Michele doesn’t trust anyone.”

  “What do we do about this, Chase?” Bailey asks. “Don’t you think we have to straighten some things out?”

  Chase stares at Bailey.

  “Don’t put me in this position, Chase.”

  “Go, dude. Leave. I want you out of here.”

  “Take it easy,” Bailey sighs. “I just wanted to make sure that one of my oldest friends isn’t stealing from me.”

  “I’m not stealing from you, Bailey.”

  “I want to clarify things,” Bailey says. “The girls are booking appointments behind my back and then they’re giving Michele the money, right? That’s all I want to know.”

  “I think that’s happening. Yes.”

  “You’ve got to stop this with Michele. You have to cease and desist.”

  “Or what, Bailey?” Chase asks. “Or fucking what?”

  “I’ve known you a long time, Chase.”

  “Jesus, that’s so tired, Bailey. Yeah? And? What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know if this is something you really want to start heading into,” Bailey says. “I don’t think you want to go where this road is heading. I’m making you an offer to get off the road.”

  Chase smirks. “I’ll give it some thought.”

  “You really don’t have a fucking clue what you’re dealing with.”

  “Are you dangerous now, Bailey? Should I be worried about you?”

  “You are not paying enough attention,” Bailey finally says. “You are not seeing the bigger picture here.”

  The way Bailey says this makes Chase’s chest tighten. He is suddenly certain that Bailey would tackle him if he moved toward the door.

  “You have not been paying attention, Chase.”

  It’s a clear day and Chase lays five unfolded cardboard boxes flat in the backseat of the Mustang and drives across the sun-baked valley to Summerlin where Bailey lives. A black Silverado pickup truck with massive tires is parked in the driveway. Chase doesn’t see Bailey’s Impala. The front door is unlocked and inside the house it’s cool and dark and all the blinds are drawn. Two girls watch TRL on a plasma television. Neither one acknowledges Chase. The girls are wearing bikini tops and shorts and when Chase asks if Bailey is around they shake their heads.

  “Is Michele here?”

  But they’re laughing at the shrieking audience on TRL and when Chase is about to head upstairs a huge guy comes in from outside wearing bathing trunks and a thick rope chain around his neck. A girl is screaming something in Spanish from the backyard and when the heavy guy slides the door shut behind him the screaming continues but becomes fainter. The heavy guy, whom Chase recognizes from Rachel’s apartment as the guy in the Raiders jersey, ignores Chase and walks into the kitchen. The guy holds a bloody rag and tosses it on the counter and grabs a bottle of Clorox from the cabinet under the sink and pours the bleach into a dish towel. When the guy turns to leave he looks directly at Chase and a shadow creeps across his expression, making his eyes seem endlessly black.

  “Want to see something wild?” the guy asks.

  When Chase shakes his head the heavy guy leaves.

  Outside the kitchen window three girls are gathered around two halves of a massive sidewinder snake, a machete tossed next to it, blood on the concrete.

  Chase has to pass Bailey’s bedroom to get to Michele’s. Bailey’s door is closed and Chase slows down to listen. He leans against the door but hears nothing. He tries to open the door but it’s locked. Michele’s bedroom is dark and smells of cigarette smoke and perfume. In the dull light from a rice paper lamp: piles of clothes, ashtrays filled with butts smoked to the filter, melted candles, magazines, shoes, unopened mail, compact discs, and Rachel’s Tasmanian Devil bong. Wrapped in plastic and stacked on top of one another are four thick accounting textbooks. All of the furniture is black leather and dark oak, and African masks are everywhere. A framed floor-to-ceiling Elvis poster seems out of place. There are Post-its on the mirror, by the door, on books, on her bedside lamp, on a laptop’s screen. An enormous black astrological chart, marking the return of Saturn with a series of yellow dots and intricate patterns of white and red swirls, hangs from another wall opposite the window.

  Chase starts tossing Michele’s clothes and shoes into the boxes he carried in. He unplugs her laptop and packs it, along with a photo of a dark, haggard woman—her legs crossed, a cigarette in hand, wearing a faded pink Care Bears T-shirt. This is Michele’s mother. In a drawer Chase finds the photos of Michele that he took years ago. There are a few with Carly as well. He pauses at one of Michele and Carly at Wet ’n Wild standing at the top of the tower, the sky above them a brilliant contrast of charcoal and bright purple and the wind whipping hair across their faces, half hiding their smiles. Chase gets most of Michele’s things into his car. The sun is orange now and the houses cast long black summer shadows. When Chase passes Bailey’s bedroom on his last trip inside, music is coming from behind the door. He tries the knob again and this time he’s able to slowly push the door open.
r />   A shirtless guy wearing a black skullcap points a camcorder at the two girls from the living room making out naked on a futon. The guy is Rush. 50 Cent is playing and the room smells like marijuana and no one notices Chase standing in the doorway. One of the girls slides her hand inside the other one and Rush, holding the camcorder, starts to touch himself while steadying the camera. He slides across the carpet on his knees until he’s in front of the girls, who are now sweating and writhing on the futon, fingering each other. Rush grabs a bottle of baby oil and sprays it over their bodies.

  Even though the sun is setting Chase has to squint when he walks outside for the last time, all of Michele’s things now packed in the Mustang. A little girl races down the street carrying a lacrosse stick and then disappears into the shadows. A blonde real estate agent gets out of a yellow Hummer with a middle-aged white couple and two small boys, who follow the agent into the house next to Bailey’s. Against the orange sky three massive vultures make lazy circles over something nearby.

  It was dawn and Bailey’s house was silent and warm and Michele was sitting on the floor of the master bedroom with her shirt off. She faced a wall. Sunlight flooded the room. Bailey sat on the bed with his head in his hands. On the burgundy carpet, lying under a single white sheet pulled up to her chin was Carly, her face the color of ash, and the first thing Chase wondered was why they didn’t cover it. Chase thought it was blood that was smeared across her mouth, but when he knelt next to her he realized it was lipstick from someone trying to resuscitate her. Chase touched Carly’s neck. It felt cold and waxy. Michele kept shivering. She was talking to herself. “Everyone left, you know, everyone left and it’s not like anyone tried, I didn’t leave, I just watched her and everyone else, they just left …” She soon trailed off. Bailey kept his head between his knees. Chase took his hand from Carly’s neck and he closed his eyes for a long time. When he opened them, he reached for the sheet and pulled it from her chin. She was naked. Her skin was so pale it made the birthmark on her hip as well as her nipples and her pubic hair seem unusually dark.