Tom Perrotta: Nine Inches

“Excuse me?” Lt. Finnegan shined his humongous flashlight in my face. “What did you say?”

I raised my hand to block the glare. “Nothing. I was just talking to myself.”

He clicked off the light and leaned in. His broad face filled my window frame, just a few inches from my own. He wasn’t smiling, but I had the feeling he was enjoying himself.

“Do we have some kind of problem, Donald?”

“No, sir. There’s no problem.”

“Good. ’Cause I don’t see any reason why we can’t be friends.” He straightened up, tugged on his gun belt, and turned in the direction of his car. But then he swiveled right back.

“Tell me something.” His voice was casual now, almost friendly. “What’s that mean? Sustainable Pizza ?”

“It’s just a name. They use lots of organic ingredients and recyclable boxes. Some of the produce comes from local farms.”

“People like that, huh?”

“Some of ’em.”

“Is it better than regular pizza?”

“It’s okay. Kind of expensive. But the customers keep coming back.”

“Huh.” He nodded, as if that was good enough for him. “I’ll have to give it a try.”

I HAD two bosses at Sustainable — Entrepreneurial Eddie and Stoner Eddie. Entrepreneurial Eddie was an impressive guy, a twenty-four-year-old Middlebury grad who’d returned to his hometown to start an eco-friendly pizza restaurant that he hoped someday to grow into a regional, and possibly even national, chain. He was organized, ambitious, and charismatic, a crunchy-granola preppy with shaggy blond hair and the strapping physique of the rugby player he’d been in college. He happened to be Jake’s cousin, which was the reason I’d gotten the delivery job, despite my complete lack of work experience, and the fact that I’d only had my license for a couple of months.

I’m taking a chance on you, Donald. Don’t let me down.

Entrepreneurial Eddie was always in charge when I started my shift, but he got replaced by Stoner Eddie at the end of the night, after the restaurant section had closed, and Malina and Jadwiga, the two Polish waitresses, had gone home. At that point, it was just me and Eddie and Ignacio, the Salvadoran pizza maker, who stuck around to fill any late-night delivery orders and help out with the cleanup.

Entrepreneurial Eddie could be tense and short-tempered, but Stoner Eddie absorbed the news of my moving violation with a philosophical shrug.

“That’s the way it goes, bro. The cops in this town are ballbusters. There’s no crime, so they have to make shit up to keep themselves from dying of boredom.”

“But a hundred bucks?” I whined. “I work for tips.”

“That’s how the government rolls, my friend.” The two Eddies were different in many ways, but they were both big Ron Paul supporters. “It’s all just taxes in disguise. Right, Ignacio?”

Ignacio looked up from the floor he was mopping and said something in Spanish. Eddie nodded and said something back. His accent was atrocious, but his meaning must have been clear enough, because Ignacio grinned and added another rapid-fire burst of commentary, to which Eddie replied, “Verdad, bro, verdad.” I wished I’d taken Spanish in high school instead of four years of Latin, which was utterly useless in the real world. It was my guidance counselor’s fault: he’d insisted that colleges liked students with “a classical background,” and who was I to doubt him? At that point in my life, I would’ve cut my arm off if U.S. News & World Report had mentioned that selective colleges were looking for amputees.

After we settled up, Eddie walked me to the front door. We were almost there when he put his hand on my shoulder.

“Yo, Donald,” he said. “You’re friends with Adam Willis, right?”

“Kind of.”

“Could you do me a favor?” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a serious wad of bills, and counted off five twenties. For a second, I thought he was reimbursing me for the ticket. “See if you can hook me up with some of that superior weed of his.”

I didn’t take the money. “Can’t you ask him yourself?”

“He never answers my texts.”

“He’s probably just busy. I’m sure he’ll get back to you.”

“Come on, bro. Help me out here. I got a big date this weekend.” His voice got soft and confidential. “I’m telling you, that stuff’s some kind of aphrodisiac. I smoked half a joint with Malina last week, and that was all it took.”

“Malina?”

“I know, bro.” He grinned at the miracle. “I’ve been working on her for weeks, and she wouldn’t give me the time of day. Couple hits of that magic bud, and the panties just slid right off.”

It was hard to imagine Malina’s panties sliding off for Eddie, or any guy around here. She was pale and chillingly beautiful, with sad eyes and a husky, disdainful voice. She always seemed vaguely offended in the restaurant, as if waitressing was beneath her dignity, and life a bitter disappointment.

“Wow.”

“I know.” Eddie tucked the money into my jacket pocket and patted me on the shoulder. “I’m counting on you, bro.”

THE NEXT afternoon, I joined Adam Willis and his chocolate Lab for their daily hike through the woods behind the abandoned state mental hospital. It was creepy back there — lots of rusty appliances and old tires lying around, not to mention a tiny cemetery with maybe twenty unmarked headstones and a sign explaining that the graves belonged to former mental patients who’d died in the hospital: THOUGH YOUR NAMES ARE UNKNOWN, WE HOLD YOU CLOSE IN OUR HEARTS. I waited until we’d been walking awhile before I told Adam that my boss wanted to buy some of his weed.

“No way,” he said. “I don’t sell to strangers.”

“I could introduce you. Eddie’s a pretty good guy.”

Adam stopped and scanned the woods, shielding his eyes from the golden light streaming down through the red and gold treetops. It was mid-October, and the leaves had just begun to drop.

“Yo, Hapster?” he called out. “Where are you, dude?”

The question was barely out of his mouth when Happy burst out of the woods and onto the trail, his ears flapping as he galloped toward us, the usual look of crazed anticipation on his face.

“Dassagoodboy.” Adam crouched down, scratching Happy’s ears and slipping him one of the little bone-shaped treats he carried in his pocket. “Dassaverygoodboy.”

He gave the dog a booming thump on the ribs, and we started walking again.

“I don’t get it,” Adam said. “Why are you even involved with this? If your boss wants some weed, why doesn’t he just ask me himself?”

“He did. He said he texted you a bunch of times and you never got back to him.”

“Damn right. I’m not gonna text some guy I don’t know. What if he’s a cop?”

“Eddie’s not a cop. He’s Jake Hauser’s cousin.”

“Jake Hauser,” Adam scoffed. “Dude never said shit to me.”

Adam and I had been high school classmates, but our social circles didn’t really overlap. We’d been close as kids — pretty much best friends — until his mom died of cancer when we were in seventh grade. He turned angry and distant after that, started listening to this dark metal, Slipknot and stuff like that, and hanging out with a druggy crowd. His dad wasn’t around a lot of the time — I heard he had a girlfriend in another town — and Adam did pretty much whatever he wanted, which was mainly just playing video games and getting high and skipping school. Whenever his name came up, my mother called him poor Adam and referred to him as a lost soul. I’m pretty sure he didn’t graduate.

I ran into him outside of CVS one day in September, after everybody else had left for college, and we got to reminiscing about the old days and the fun we used to have. He had his dog with him, and I had nothing else to do, so I tagged along on their afternoon walk. He texted me the next day, asking if I wanted to do it again.