THIRTY-NINE
AS ANIJ GETS BUSIER making his deliveries, he and Samantha start to shop more and more. It is mostly for her, though. She is the happiest girl in the town. Virtually every exclusive brand is displayed in her closet. She has become the number one star with her opulent look. She is not skanky anymore. There is just no red carpet yet for her. But if there were one, she would be the first one to walk on it.
She is again walking on streets alone, wearing her new clothes. Her daily schedule for months has been to keep up with the new arrivals in all the stores. Her walk is filled with such pride. She looks like a highly paid model on a catwalk. There are no photographers, but in her mind there are thousands out there. Lots of guys are whistling at her. She doesn’t even look at any of those guys. A total head-turner, she is.
Somehow, fashion is not her thing today. She enters a music shop and looks around for newly arrived albums.
“Woo... Who is this? I haven’t seen him before. Hm . . . and . . .”
While she is flipping through the records in the New Arrivals section, a bunch of guys enter the shop. They were checking her out from the street. They walk around her and try to make some conversation.
One of them says, “Hey, girl. What are you looking for? I know a thing or two about music. I guess you need some help.”
Samantha says to herself, “Ah, she has a new record out and . . .” Pays no attention to those guys. Keeps talking to herself.
The guy throws his line again, “I said, what are you looking for, ha?”
“Hm,” she says to the album cover, “I don’t know him, either . . .”
A new guy from the group tries this time. “This guy is good. Don’t you think?”
She stares at him and answers, “Well, he is so old. If you want to keep up with me, you’ve got to know a lot about new stuff.”
“Well. Well. Well. Finally you are talking . . .”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Anyway, this is very nice.” He pulls a vinyl record from a shelf behind her. She stares at him and shakes her head.
“If that is your pick, your taste must be very awful.” She turns him down hard and smacks him down on the floor with a cold answer. He looks at her and his boys with questioned eyes. He is quite stunned by her comment. No reaction from her whatsoever. She walks away and picks a vinyl from a different shelf.
The guy tries to make another move on her. “Hey, I wasn’t so sure what you would like. So I picked something generic. Maybe you’d like this one better.” He picks up another album and shows it to her.
She doesn’t even look at him at all. As soon as he has finished his sentence, she answers, “I am sure your mommy would love that one. Why don’t you go to your mama?”
He is shocked. A ten-second pregnant pause. The rest of the guys are laughing at him hard. Then she faces a clerk as if nothing had happened.
“Can I listen to this one?”
“Certainly. All the rooms are full, so you’ll have to wait a bit.”
“Oh, that is fine, as long as I don’t have to put up with these stupid jerks.” While she speaks to the clerk, she gives them a sarcastic look.
Hopelessly, the boys leave her alone. She walks to a chair in front of the listening booths. She lights a cigarette and patiently waits. While she is smoking and waiting, she briefly glances at the rooms. Someone seems familiar. Then she takes a second look at one of the booths. It looks like Anij is sitting there. She gets up quickly and approaches to the booth. What a surprise. She never imagined that she would see him here. Happiness blooms on her face. She runs to the booth and opens the door. “Baby? What are you doing here? I didn’t know you were a fan of music.”
No answer from him.
“Are you okay?”
Anij doesn’t even move or recognize her at all. She senses that he is not normal; maybe he has overdosed.
“Wake up! Anij! Wake up! Oh my . . . What the hell happened? Oh . . . !”
His head is down and he is breathing violently. She is frightened of what is happening to him. She tries to lift him up to take him to a hospital.
“Help! Somebody help!”
People from the other booths and shoppers look at her. No one seems to care much. But one of the clerks runs to her and checks Anij.
“Wow! What the . . . Can you give me a hand? Let’s lift him up. Help! People! Help!”
Then some other guys start to lift him up. Anij is totally wasted. He must have taken a lot of something. Maybe too much. His body is like a steamed vegetable. Anij is being fermented by himself. The guys put Anij on a chair nearby. But as soon as Anij is put on the chair, he gets knocked down to the floor in a second. His head smacks very hard on the floor. It didn’t sound good. Due to his intoxication, he can’t feel even that hard blow to his head,. Some people are getting nervous. One of them calls 911. The urgency of the situation rises rapidly. The clerk asks her.
“Do you know him?”
“Yeah. He is my boyfriend.”
“What the hell did he do? He looks really screwed up, you know . . .”
“Oh, no . . . Anij. What the hell happened? What did you do?”
Still no answer from Anij. It is almost certain that he can’t really hear anything clearly. He tries to get a grip on himself. But his body resists movement. Some people start to freak out and leave. Anij tries to say something to Samantha. But it is so not clear. It just sounds like gibberish. “Uh . . . Oh . . . Woo . . .”
He keeps trying to say something. But it is just a noise. She is shocked with awe. So many thoughts are passing through her mind. She is not sure why he is suddenly in this kind of shape. Sobbing, her tears wet the floor. Everyone just looks at them with much curiosity, as though they were animals in a zoo.
A woman from the crowd notices the tune from the booth that Anij was in. “Oh, that is ‘Summertime,’ by Ella.”
Anij is smoking outside on the street. It has been at least thirty minutes that he has been waiting. The delivery car still isn’t here. He is getting more and more uptight. There has not been any mistake or accident since the first delivery. That is what makes him even more worried. He lights up his sixth cigarette. He inhales very deeply and exhales fast with uptight sighs. Every time he looks at the road, there is no car coming. There goes the seventh cigarette thrown on the ground. Anger is wildly blooming and is about to explode. He storms into this house to make a phone call to Mario. He dials the number.
Then Samantha asks, “What is wrong? Why aren’t they here yet?”
“I don’t know. There must be something wrong. I’ve got to check with Mario.”
“Shit. Is he trying to screw us? But for what?”
“Shut up! He is not like that. Okay?”
“Well, you never know. And you can never trust anyone these days. You know better.”
“Just shu — oh. Can I speak to Mario?”
“Hey! Anij! Long time no see, man.”
“Yeah, talk to you later. Get me Mario. Now!”
“Okay. Okay. Easy, man. He is coming. Hey! Mario! It is Anij on the phone!”
“Mario?”
“Yeah, speaking.”
“What is going on? The guys are still not here.”
“Really? Hm . . . They should have been there twenty minutes ago.”
“No! Thirty minutes ago. What is going on?”
“Well . . . Maybe a traffic jam? Or something else? How should I know?”
“Well, you sent them, right?”
“Yeah. So what? How the hell do I know why they are not there!”
“Shit . . . Anything happened? Bad stuff?”
“No. It was clean. Come on. Relax . . . Just wait a while. They’ll be there soon.”
“I just don’t know what the hell is . . . Oh, wait.”
Someone knocks on the door. Anij answers.
“Who is this?”
“Delivery.”
“Oh, I think I got it now.”
“See? Okay. I’ve got to go. ’Bye.”
“Okay. ’Bye.”
The delivery guys knock on the door again. Anij opens the door. Two guys with a suitcase are standing there.
“What took you so long?”
“Well . . . The car broke down. So we had to go to a shop for a quick fix.”
“That is it? Then why didn’t you call?”
“Well, the repair was done fast. But this guy took freaking twenty minutes in the bathroom while I was waiting in the car,” pointing out the other guy and giving him a dirty look.
“Sorry. My stomach wasn’t feeling so well. Sorry . . .”
“Shit . . . Anyway. Come in. Got the stuff?”
“Oh, yeah. We only carry the best, you know that. See it for yourself.”
“Okay. Let me see.”
They all enter the house and put the suitcase on the kitchen table. Both guys check out Samantha. Anij is solely concentrating on the contents inside the suitcase. While Anij is studying the product meticulously, the two delivery guys are again looking her over with slithering eyes. The guys both look at each other with satisfied faces. She notices that these guys are groping her with their eyes. She stares at them with extreme distaste. It is fairly usual for her, but not when someone is in her home. Then she turns away and enters her bedroom. Anij stabs one of the bags and tastes a little bit. After a brief moment, a smile is automatically spreading on his face. He says, “All right. This is what I am talking about.”
“See? Told you, man. We only carry the best.”
“Okay. Thanks, guys. Want some whisky?”
“What, are you crazy? In this weather? No. Maybe next time.”
“Okay. Anyway, thanks, guys. See you later.”
“Okay. We are out of here.”
“And try not to be late next time, okay?”
“Okay. We will try.”
“Okay.”
Anij sees them out the door. The delivery guys walk out of the house slowly. Another moment of relief. Then he closes the door. Now it is time to deliver the suitcase to James. That is all there is left to do. Anij rushes to the kitchen to double-check the contents inside the suitcase.
Suddenly, the front door breaks open and the delivery guys rush in with guns in their hands. “Police! Police! Freeze! Don’t move!”
Anij is so surprised and shocked he doesn’t know what to do. “Shit! What the . . .”
He looks around quickly to find the fastest way to get to the bedroom to take Samantha out of the room and leave the house. A brief second passes by, and then he jumps a couch and storms straight toward the bedroom. But the delivery guys react faster. One of them jumps and catches him before he gets to the bedroom door.
“I said, freeze! Don’t try to play a game with me, son!”
“Ah . . . ! Let go! You asshole!”
While Anij desperately tries to kick the guy, the other guy runs into the bedroom to take Samantha. There is no other option for Anij but to yell at Samantha, “Samantha! Run! Get away from here!”
The guy who is holding Anij hits Anij’s legs with a baton. But Anij desperately continues to yell, “Ah! Shit! Samantha! Just run!”
The other guy enters the bedroom to find Samantha. She is helplessly lying on a couch. It seems that while the delivery was taking place, she must have taken some drugs. She is very high and completely unaware of all this. The other guy shakes her hard. He laughs at her — it is just so easy for him to take her away. He lifts her and puts her over his shoulder. Anij stares at the bedroom. But he can’t quite see what is going on. The uncertainty of this situation drowns Anij to the deepest part of the ocean. Anij is getting beaten and is screaming for help.
His life shouldn’t end this ridiculously and abruptly. There was no warning of any kind. Shit can really happen so fast, way before anyone takes a second breath.
The other guy walks out slowly from the bedroom with Samantha draped limply on his shoulder. Anij and the guy who is holding him are surprised. They didn’t expect Samantha to be that easy. The other guy shows a little smile on his face. Anij is not sure why he is smiling at all in the middle of this situation. A million different things are passing through his mind. He is wondering if the guy had smacked her or did something to her in the bedroom. The other guy is still laughing at her. “Hahahaha!” He puts her down on the floor.
Then the guy who is holding Anij starts to laugh as well. Anij feels how strange this all is; it is definitely weird. But this is not the time to think. It is time to run. The delivery guy lets go of him all of a sudden. He senses that now is his only chance to run away. Quickly he stands up and runs to Samantha. The guys are still laughing out loud. As soon as he grabs her and starts to run away from them, the guys call out to him, “Come on, Anij. We ain’t no cops.”
As soon as he hears what they just said, he stops suddenly. He just looks at them without a word.
“Mario told us to test your security.”
Anij can’t believe what he is hearing from these guys. He is in complete shock while still holding Samantha in his arms.
“What? What?”
“Come on. You really thought we were cops?”
“Oh . . . I don’t understand.”
“Wow! That was fun! Come on, guys.”
Samantha is now waking up and trying to understand this situation. Even though she was out of it, she had heard something. She asks Anij, “What the hell is going on? Anij! You okay?”
“Oh . . . I am okay. You?”
“What the hell did you guys do?”
One of the guys explains the situation again to her. “I already explained this to Anij. It was a test from Mario about your house security.”
She isn’t sure what to think. It is not certain that what they are saying is true. They are maybe testing Anij for whatever reason. She is really upset and starts yelling at them. “Get out of here!”
“Well. I told you. Mario told us to test your security of your house. So this was a test.”
“Ah . . . Whatever . . .”
Anij tries to settle this matter fast. “Let’s have a drink. Okay?”
Anij and Samantha are still trying to gather their thoughts. But the more they think about it, the more they get pissed off. She yells at them again, “Holy shit! You guys are assholes! I heard somebody laughing, and it is not funny!”
Those guys don’t really care what she has to say. They just look at each other and ask Anij, “Where is the whisky?”
“Shit . . . Ah . . . second cabinet door from the right.”
Those guys start to laugh again, then ask her, “It wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“It was freaking bad! Assholes . . .”
“Well. We only did our job.”
“Now I really need a drink.”
She enters the kitchen to get some whisky to calm herself down. They all enter the kitchen. As they all sip their drinks, one of the delivery guys says, “Yeah. Now you know how poorly your house and you guys are protected.”
“Well, I guess.”
“So, Mario told me that you should have some guns.”
“Maybe I do need them.”
“If cops were barging in like this, you would definitely need one, right? Anij?”
“Yeah. Looks like we just got a new shopping list.”
“Whatever it was, you guys are sick. Hey Anij, why are you keeping these assholes? You heard me. Get out of my house!”
Samantha continues to rant. She and Anij had both thought it was the end. A very lousy one.