“Ms. Jonay says you were the one who instigated it, throwin’ the package at the poor elderly woman. You made the dog attack you.”
“That’s not true!”
Patricia ignores me. “This is the fourth write-up on your record, Medley,” she reminds me. “Which means you’re just one more away from gettin’ fired.”
I seethe, my vision goin’ black with anger. If I gripped the steerin’ wheel any harder, I’d break the damn thing. Automatically, one of my hands comes up to the necklace of stones around my neck.
I’ve worn this thing since Mama gave it to me in the first grade, with a few chain replacements along the way. It’s a necklace of small river stones, and Mama always encouraged me to touch the stones to help ground myself. I run my thumb and fingers over the smooth surfaces as I count out three deep breaths until the blackness recedes and I can think straight again.
“You hear me?”
“Yeah, I heard you,” I grit out.
She knows damn well I need this job too much to quit. She also knows that I’m bluffin’ about callin’ the cops. Sheriff Early hates my guts, ever since he found me up in Docky Rocks dancin’ topless on the table while his sweet innocent daughter was at the bar. He thinks I’m a bad influence, even though his daughter is a grown-ass woman and hasn’t been innocent since she grew into her trainin’ bra in grade school.
That’s the problem with small towns: people know too much shit about you. That’s why I was glad when my daddy got a job in South Carolina right before I went into middle school. It was a fresh start for a bit, and then I went off to Arkansas State University for college, which was another much needed start over. Of course, that ended with no degree, a pile of student loans, and a shitty experience, but that’s neither here nor there.
But ever since I moved back years ago, I’ve been tryin’ to get out from under my roots in Sweetgreen and dealin’ with bitchy Patricia and Chip-on-the-Shoulder Sheriff Early. Just great.
“You done with your packages?” Patricia asks, because the woman just can’t ever quit.
“I got one more.”
She hums. “Hurry up with your shift. You get a package out late, and I’ll have no choice but to give you that last write-up, Medley.”
I swear, this woman is the devil. She’s perfectly happy to overlook that I’m doin’ her and her hateful mouth a favor by workin’ this shift today. If she fires me,nopackages are gettin’ delivered on time, but that seems to have slipped her mind. Again.
I take a deep breath, because as much as I’d like to call her bluff and tell her she can kick rocks, I need the money. “Yes, ma’am,” I concede, hatin’ myself a little more every day that I put up with this crap.
She hangs up without another word, and I let out a string of curses includin’ what she could stick up her ass and pull out on Sunday. Spoiler, it ain’t a Bible.
I realize, in my haste to get the hell out of dodge, I haven’t checked the address of my last package of the day. Usually, I wait a bit in the warehouse and map out all my destinations for the day so I can be as efficient as possible, but today, Patricia was moanin’ at me to get goin’, so I didn’t have the time to plan it all out.
I park on the side of the road real quick and scrabble to the back of my truck to grab the last package. It’s a big damn box, but luckily, it ain’t too heavy. I shift it over so I can read the address, and then frown at the unfamiliar road. I know all the streets around Sweetgreen—it’s one of the only boons to havin’ this job. I know all the shortcuts and every location around, but I’ve never heard of this place.
Snaggin’ my phone from the holder, I pop in the address to my GPS, and my jaw drops at the location. It’s way out in BFE, on some street I’ve never even heard of. It’s about a spit’s toss away from the Okefenokee Swamp, and the recipient is someplace called Hairy Dog Tavern. I thought I knew every bar in town, but I guess not.
Accordin’ to my GPS, it’s gonna take me thirty-four minutes to get there, and this package is due in...thirty-two minutes.
“Well, that most certainly puts me up shit creek without a paddle, and Lord knows I’m not a good swimmer.”
Peachy. Just peachy.
2
Ihaul ass back up to the driver’s seat and hit the pedal to the metal. There’s a damn governor on this truck that makes it so it can’t go over sixty, which means I’m gonna be cuttin’ it real damn close to deliverin’ this package on time.
I really can’t afford to tempt fate with this whole firin’ thing, so I can’t be even a minute late gettin’ this package dropped off and scanned before the time’s up. Swift Shipping Services doesn’t give a Georgia peach about anythin’ other than deliverin’ packages on time.
Patricia has had it out for me since our company’s mechanic, Bob Grace, winked at me one day. It’s common knowledge that Patricia has had a lady boner for him for years, and she doesn’t take kindly to competition. Not that I’d ever touch the pot-bellied, gapped-tooth misogynist. Not in a million years.
I race down the highway, cuttin’ off cars and takin’ as many shortcuts that I know about, pushin’ the truck and its speed restrictor all the way to the max.
Good thing I don’t have any more packages in the back because I have to make some jerky turns and tire-squealin’ stops that would definitely send boxes slidin’ all over the damn place.
I take a quick moment to curse Ms. Jonay to a future filled with nothin’ but broken porcelain dolls as I wipe sweat from my brow. I turn the vent in the truck on high, but it just blows more hot air, and I quickly shut it off.
SSS may value on-time delivery, but they certainly don’t value human life as they do their best to cook drivers to a crispy well-done on a regular basis thanks to the lack of air-conditionin’ in their trucks. So from seven a.m. until whenever I get done deliverin’ hundreds of packages every night, I’m sweatin’ worse than a hooker in church, because this thing only has a vent.
