Chapter 3
A pink truck was parked diagonally in the driveway of the apartment building I lived in. The license plate read LORD and I counted 5 dishwashers that sat in the truck’s bed.
I walked up the concrete steps to the front door, but before I could get my keys out, the door swung open.
“Hey,” I yelled, grabbing onto my forearm that had been smacked.
A duo of dudes holding what appeared to be my dishwasher, came stumbling out the front door. They went down the steps to the gravel driveway before giving one big heave- throwing the dishwasher on top of the others in the bed.
“What are you doing?! There is nothing wrong with my dishwasher.”
The bigger of the two guys smacked his hands together as if to get dust off of them and looked at me. “Sorry I do not speak any English,” he said in perfect English.
“Yeah, me neither,” the little one said as they both giggled.
“Ah yes, Jessica, just the person I wanted to speak to,” said a voice from inside the house.
I turned my head to see my landlord coming out the front door and into the light. She was a small woman with a curly black bob and mouse like features. This particular day she wore a neon pink jogging suit with a neon pink fanny pack around her waist.
“Last night I watched a fascinating documentary that talked about how dishwashers are some of the worst offenders of releasing microplastics into the world. And I felt so powerless,” she said as she lowered her head.
Rising her head back up, she continued, “Thinking about all of the dishwashers in my rental units was too much to bear. So I said enough. Janet, you need to be the change you want to see in the world. And here I am doing my part. Making sure my tenants are safe from the invisible threat,” Janet said clapping her hands together and jumping up and down.
I looked at the truck full of dishwashers and back at my landlord who looked back at me with a sly grin and eyebrow raised, “A thank you would be nice.”
“I think I had dishes being washed in mine.”
“Oh,” Janet said. She zipped open her fanny pack and pulled a wad of cash and started counting the bills.
“Ten, good.” She put the cash back into her purse and pulled out a root beer flavored hard candy. Her hand extended out with the candy, nudging my stomach.
“Those plates were infected anyways, lets call it even.”
I took the candy, “Thanks Janet.”
She and her sons entered her truck while I opened up my candy. Inside the wrapper was a logo with two intersecting lines with the words, “Happy and Healthy,”. I stared dumfounded at this logo while the truck started up and reversed out of the driveway.
“Don’t leave,” I yelled- only to look up and see that her truck had already turned the corner. I put the root beer candy in my mouth only to spit it out onto the ground- I should not be eating candy given to me by my landlord.
Chapter 4
The wooden floors of my first floor apartment were warped; which was not unique to the apartments on the east side of Providence. If you drop a golf ball on the floor it would start rolling every which way, following the curves of the wood- telling a story about how years of bitter winters and humid summers transformed it.
In fact, the landlords of this area have so much pride in owning these relics, they fight tooth and nail whenever they are burdened with making repairs. “These buildings have been here since the 1800’s, who am I to change history…” is the de facto answer when you bring up the broken heaters or suspect plumbing. Come to think of it, this is the same answer given to people of color that try to be members at the beach club’s in South County.
I stood in my kitchen looking at the empty space where the dishwasher used to be. Part of me wanted to cry- part of me wanted to get undressed and touch myself. “It is much to early for either of those,” I said. The clock on the microwave read 11:15am. “Yeah… I should be productive,” I thought before pulling out the candy wrapper and inspecting it for clues.
Not many places come to mind that I could attribute being ‘happy’ and ‘healthy’, which tells me that Misty was playing poverty earlier. Those two adjectives are not usually lumped together while riding the bus. I scratched my head, “And why would it be on a candy wrapper?”
Just then I heard a sharp knocking sound coming from my living room. I left the kitchen to see that a plump woman with a beehive hairdo was the one outside knocking on my window. As I got closer, it became apparent by the pastry crumbs on her blue uniform, that this was indeed an officer of the law.
“Open up this here window,” the officer said.
I bent down to unlatch the window but stopped myself, “What do you want?”
“Officer Debra here. Don’t cha worry, I’m here for some fact finding. Look,” the officer stepped back from the window and gave a 360 spin. “See, don’t got my gun or cuffs on me, now go ahead and open that window.”
I opened the window and squatted so we could speak eye to eye.
“Is this you,” the officer asked while holding up a piece of paper with my name, birthdate, and my employer’s name.
“Yes, that is me… please tell me what this is about.”
The officer put the piece of paper away and took out a pack of cigarettes, “Ya want one?”
I shook my head as she lit up- blowing cigarette smoke past me and into my apartment.
“Were you on the bus this morning?”
“I was on the bus this morning, yes.”
She took another puff, this time exhaling the smoke through her nose.
“You paid the bus fare of someone that was not you, correct?”
The hair on my neck rose up. I tried to keep my face still while I answered.
“Yep, I hope being generous is not a crime.”
The officer turned away from the window and walked to her cruiser. She opened the passenger door of the car and made a groan while bending down to grab an item that was on the floor. She then placed her free hand on her lower back and let out another groan as she stood back up before walking over to my window.
“Then I believe this is yours, take a look and confirm,” the officer said handing me my Kafka book.
My eyes were wide and my mouth opened.
“Yeah,” the officer took another drag of her cigarette, “a buddy of mine drives that bus and said you got off in some kind of hurry and left this here book behind.”
I started rubbing my hands over the book to make sure it was real. Had Misty been a mirage?
The officer put out her cigarette on the window sill, “Now, you didn’t forget anything else on that bus now, did ya?”
“How did you become friends with the bus driver?”
“Never mind my extra curricular relations with Herb, just answer the question.” The officer put a lot of emphasis on the ‘q’ in question.
“Nope, this was it- thank you!”
The officer squinted her eyes at me, “One more question.”
Had it not been for my black shirt, the officer would have seen my sweat stains growing.
“Ope, just lost my train of thought. I hate it when that happens. Guess it was not that important. All right now. You’re good to go,” the officer said and turned towards her car.
My shoulders dropped and butthole relaxed.
“Oh I know what I was gonna ask,” she said turning around. My butthole clenched all over again.
“Why are you riding the bus? Don’t ya know those things are for poor people? Go ahead and take your car next time.”
A beat passed as we both stared at one another. To fill the silence I burst out in a fake laughter and pointed at her, “That is a good one officer, have a good rest of your day now!”
She was not amused as she walked to the driver’s side of the car and got in. I continued to smile and wave until the cruiser was out of sight. Only then did it feel safe to close and lock the windows.
Chapter 5
A gurgling noise emitted from my percolator. I ran from my seat in the living room to take it off of the induction cook stove before I burnt my espresso.
There was a mason jar that was half full of ice with a glob on condensed milk on top. I poured my freshly brewed espresso into it. My first sip was mostly condensed milk- why did I not stir this? Whatever. I took the coffee back to the living room to enjoy it on my small couch. The second sip was much better. I leaned forward to put the drink on the coffee table and grabbed the Kafka book that was returned to me.
To my surprise, pages three, four and five had been ripped out. Had I not started the book that morning, I might have overlooked this. Was this Misty’s way of telling me something? I flipped through the book to see if there were more clues.
On page 42, there was a rudimentary drawing of a small frog riding in a hot air balloon. But I had drawn that weeks ago, so I kept flipping the pages.
“Three pages ripped out… what could she have possibly meant by that,” I said aloud. Nothing else about the book had been altered. I reached for the laptop that was on the coffee table before stopping myself and leaning back. Whatever was going on, using technology would only hurt; within three hours of meeting Misty, the powers at be not only knew where I lived, but sent one of Providence’s finest to talk to me.
I punched the couch cushion and then took a deep breath. There was a quarter in my pocket and I pulled it out, placing it on my thumb, “Okay. Heads, I give this up. Tails, I find Misty.”
The quarter sprung from my finger much faster than I had wanted and hit the ceiling. The ricochet caused the quarter to go across the room. Before I was able to get up and grab it, I watched the quarter fall in between the warped floor and disappear from site. I gave out a small pout and went to collect my wallet, keys and my phone- the quarter had spoken loud and clear.
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