Sean Beaudoin - Welcome Thieves

Maybe even contagious.

Transformation was, according to a textbook he’d partially read, inevitable.

The walker became crutches became a cane.

He dropped out, put on weight.

“Oh, wow,” people said in the produce aisle, at the movies. “You still in town?”

Danny found the ambulance chick’s number, called her up. The next day he got a job delivering pizza, put a deposit on an apartment off campus, right above a comic book shop. The owner tended to frown while he limped though the stacks, showed off his scars, winked at nerdy girls, lifted a few Green Lanterns.

Is the Fist of Power lost forever?!!? the covers asked. Will a monarch emerge from within the Demon Chrysalis?!!?

1983 Plymouth Scamp “Pizza Monster” Delivery Truck

It was nearly midnight on a rush order, window down, radio blaring. The classics. Verse, chorus, verse. Buh-buh-buh Bennie and the Jets . The DJ complained about the heat. The stink of pepperoni rose from the floorboards. Zeppelin was next, with their grunts and squeals, their Middle Earth routine. It was like, if the dude was such a Druid, why was he trying so hard to sound black?

Danny spotted a glint of chrome on the side of the road, locked ’em up. In a clearing stood an ultimate Frisbee squad, coed, mud-flecked, ponytails and orange slices. Their van steamed, hood propped with a Wiffle bat. He wanted to give them all a hug for thinking that ironic things had actual meaning, their discounted sneakers and sailor tattoos and patchy facial hair.

“Y’all need some help?”

They cheered.

He eased out of the cab, limped across the double yellows.

The cheering stopped.

“Holy shit,” someone said.

Danny tended to forget he was him. Broken. Looming. Might as well rock a leather apron and a chainsaw.

A girl in hot pants stepped forward, aimed something shiny and black.

“Shoot,” he said.

Her lighter illuminated the engine, a knot of rust and ticking heat. Danny leaned over and pretended to tighten a hose, spelled out his name in crankcase grease.

“Okay, fire it up.”

Hot Pants slid behind the wheel and jammed in the key. The van magically roared to life, air thick with ozone and the tang of high fives.

“Oh, fuck it,” Hot Pants said, and jumped into Danny’s arms.

Everyone laughed. Beers were retrieved from the cooler, the radio cranked. Bros danced with bros, whitely and without shame. Danny stood in the middle of it all, drinking in just the sort of love that can only come from an ultimate Frisbee team on the side of the road in the cricket-heavy dark.

2009 Black Acura “Sport Package” ZDX

By August he was resurrecting two cars a week. Sorority girls and math department heads. Adjuncts and transfers. The occasional rumpled provost. It was a small college town, dark country roads, way too easy to get stuck or stranded.

Word got back to Pizza Monster.

Mikey Atta spun dough on his middle finger, dared Danny to charge fifty a car. Hippie Tim buttoned his tweed jacket, said it was a lawsuit on a platter. Gail, sweaty-pink and nearly poured into her waitress uniform, said everyone had one important skill in life and Danny’s was to rescue people.

“You’re an automotive Saint Bernard.”

Mikey Atta leaned through the pass and air-wristed a blow job. The busboys fell out in hysterics. A woman looking at the menu frowned, took her son by the elbow, let the screen door slam.

“So what’s your one important skill?” Danny asked.

“Folding napkins,” Gail said, finishing another pile. She had short bangs and cat eye glasses, spoke out of the corner of her mouth in a sardonic way that waitresses with advanced degrees now living off campus with a guy named Zach sometimes tended to. It was no secret that Danny wanted to spend entire shifts carnally entwined, locked in the walk-in while Gail’s hot breath and cries for mercy defrosted several flats of ricotta. It was also no secret to her boyfriend, Zach, who didn’t like it a bit, but got one look at Danny’s enormous shaved head and swollen knuckles and decided to be evolved about the whole thing.

“You got something for me?” she whispered.

Danny took the cash and slipped a baggie into her apron pocket.

“Incoming!” Hippie Tim yelled. It was his one important skill: radar. Ten seconds later a booth’s worth of sorority girls gaggled in, ordered a round of side salads, and then went to town on free breadsticks.

Mikey Atta flicked his tongue between two fingers.

Tom Petty oozed from the juke.

Danny stood out on the deck, where a black Acura circled the lot, laid a patch all the way down the street.

“Delivery up!” Hippie Tim yelled, sliding round glasses back up his nose. “You think you can you handle this one, Danny, or should I call in the National Guard?”

1969 Porsche 911T

Bob Devine had been ordering an X-large with sausage and peppers three nights a week since his wife emptied the closets and took the twins to her mother’s in Corfu. She left a note peanut-buttered to the wall letting Professor Devine know where he could stick his teaching assistant, a fey Asian kid with Elvis sideburns. Three months later Elvis transferred to Duke, leaving behind a suitcase full of uncorrected papers and a formal harassment complaint now working its way through dual ethics panels. The only thing the professor got to keep was the mortgage and an ancient Porsche up on blocks, extradition hopeless, the twins destined to hit puberty under the cruel Ionian sun.

He opened the door before Danny could even knock. Boxers, chest hair, silk robe. They’d had one class, History of Some Shit or Another. Danny was still on scholarship then. Cocky and entitled. Pawing at girls. Never did the reading, never knew the answers. Shiloh. Yalta. Teapot Dome.

Professor Devine lifted the lid, grabbed a slice, shoved it deep.

“Is America wonderful or what?”

“As long as you’re American.”

“Well, all empires have their flaws. But few have unlimited toppings.”

“Or unlimited credit.”

Devine added two quarters to the bill, unaware that SHITTY TIPPER blinked on the screen every time he ordered. Gail, whose one important skill was actually coding Linux, set the system up. SHITTY TIPPER was license for Mikey Atta to loogie the mozz, to crimp the professor’s dough with a grease-black sneaker print before ladling sauce. At first Danny was against it, but was now fairly sure it made no difference. Every single thing in every single restaurant in the world has been on the floor at least once.

“Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have any extra napkins, would you?”

“How many you need?”

Professor Devine held up sixty dollars.

Danny took it, palmed over a baggie.

“Don’t eat the whole thing at once.”

Professor Devine smiled.

“I have no idea how you ever failed my class.”

1993 Nissan Pulsar NX

A mile down the road a car was pulled over, hazards on. A girl stood embossed in brake light. Tall, Persian, smirking. Born to ruin teachers and preachers, mock family values on yards of thigh alone. Or maybe just really pretty.

“Need a hand?”

“Nice hat.”

Danny turned the purple cap around. Nothing to be done about the rest of the uniform, khakis and a polo shirt. Even the truck was purple, a graphic of Frankenstein on the hood going, “Grrr. . Me no skimp on toppings!”

He rolled out jumper cables, tried not to limp.

“Hey, I recognize you.”

“ Texas Chainsaw ? That was someone else.”

The girl laughed. “No, I used to come to games. Up in the bleachers, a bunch of us with a jug of wine.”

“Cheering away?”