Don't Talk to Strangers. They're Weird.

“Jeanne! Last delivery of the night!”

The girl groaned as her boss’s high-pitched voice crackled through her walkie-talkie.

Jeanne pulled up to the curb and slammed the brakes on her bicycle. She clicked transmit and replied, “Are you fucking serious, Marty? I’m on my way home. Get someone else.”

Marty’s reply came in a hiss of static.

“The pick up and drop are both on the way to your place, and I’ll pay you triple commission as soon as you come in tomorrow. And you’re the only courier who keeps her radio on after hours.”

Jeanne sighed, weighing her options. Well, the only things waiting for her back home were a cold pizza and a hot TV, and it wasn’t as though twenty-something year olds weren’t in constant need of cash.

Pulling up her dark blonde hair into a ponytail, she answered, “All right, where is it?”

Four minutes later, she was knocking on the door of a fourth floor apartment on 22^nd Street, apparently belonging to her (obviously douche-flavored) client. An unexpectedly plain looking man, probably in his thirties, opened the door slightly, hampered by a sliding chain.

“Who is it?” he asked through the gap between the door and the frame.

“I’m with the messenger service, Mr. Hill. You called about a delivery?”

“Ah, yes, yes, I remember now. Here you go,” he said, slipping a thin parcel with an inordinate number of stamps plastered all over its surface, “It’s for my grandmother. Make sure it gets to her safely.”

Jeanne handled it for a moment before saying, “Um… sir… this is a messenger service. You don’t need to put stamps on the package.”

“You ask an awful lot of questions for a virgin.”

“I was just—wait, what?”

“Oh yeah! One more thing…” the man said as he suddenly unlatched the chain on the door, rushed forward, and grabbed Jeanne by the shoulders.

He hissed, “Whatever you do, don’t talk to strangers. Like, seriously. It’s a bad idea.”

The man leaped backward into the apartment and slammed the door in Jeanne’s face, precluding any other conversation.

Whatever. The delivery address was only ten blocks up. It was a wonder that the weirdo didn’t just take it there himself. It was even on the same avenue. But as they say, work is work.

Jeanne rushed down the stairs while stuffing the package into her backpack and ran outside to where she had locked up her bicycle, only to find that someone had stolen the seat while she had been dealing with her client. The girl stopped to marvel at that fact for several moments. It was quite baffling really, that someone would steal a bicycle seat. It was one of the most important parts on a bicycle, yet among the least useful parts of a bicycle when taken by itself. Maybe the thief was a bicyclist himself and needed only a replacement seat for the one that had been stolen from his bike. Or maybe he was just an asshole who wanted to leave Jeanne with a fully functional bicycle that she was unable to effectively use.

Filing away both her livelihood and most convenient means of transportation under “crap that I can take care of when I’m not in the middle of a delivery,” the young woman quickly set off on foot, determined to stay on schedule.

Jeanne was on 28^th when she was suddenly struck by a very strange feeling. It was as though thousands of invisible needles were pricking her fingertips. It felt like someone was sneaking up behind her, getting ready to—

“Hello young lady! Would you be interested in an erotic massage?”

Jeanne was so distracted by her strange feeling that she hadn’t noticed a man wearing too-tight clothing and sporting a rather unattractive goatee standing directly in front of her. Unfortunately, they had already established eye contact, so Jeanne was unable to ignore him.

“Fifty percent off!” the man continued, “Oil and scented candles are free!”

“Ah… um…”

“All right, all right, little Miss Bargain-Hunter. I’ll massage you myself! Final offer! Surely a lovely young virgin such as yourself could stand to lose some stress?”

“I—what—”

“Oi!”

The masseur and Jeanne’s conversation was loudly interrupted by a voice from across the street. It belonged to a suspicious looking young man: dark-haired, dark-eyed, wrapped in an army coat multiple sizes too large for him. He was taller than Jeanne by a good amount and at a quick glance, probably in his mid twenties. Judging from his accent, he was from the West Coast.

He crossed the street while cursing at several honking taxis, marching up to Jeanne and deftly placing himself between her and the masseur.

He turned to face Jeanne and asked, “Hey, kit, this douche bothering you?”

“No. Well, technically yes, I suppose, but…”

Jeanne was unable to speak further as the dark-haired young man grabbed the erotic masseur by the collar, yanked him towards himself, and head butted him with exceeding force. The masseur went down like a sack of bricks made out of potatoes. Jeanne was stunned, which was happening far too often for one day.

“Did you—why did you—how did you—”

“Don’t even worry about it,” the young man said, wiping some blood off of his forehead, “This totally finishes my good deed quota for the day.” He then reached into his pocket, pulled out a small notebook and a pen, and scratched a note into it.

Jeanne gasped as her gaze jumped from him to the masseur.

“Are you bleeding? Oh my god, is this guy dead? Holy fuck, you killed him!”

The stranger rolled his eyes and replied, “Chillax, kit. He’ll wake up in a few minutes and won’t remember either of us. He’ll be dizzy for a while, but it’ll wear off. Don’t worry, I do this all the time.”

“You’ve done this before?”

“Sure, it’s a great way to meet girls. I’m Jack, by the way.”

Jack held out his hand to shake, which Jeanne did. Awkwardly.

“Nice to meet you, Jeanne.”

“Nice to meet… wait… how do you know my name?”

“It’s right here on your driver’s license,” Jack replied, holding up Jeanne’s driver’s license.

She snatched it back, shrieking, “How did you get my license?”

“From inside your wallet,” he replied, holding up Jeanne’s wallet.

“You stole my wallet?” Jeanne screeched, grabbing it from Jack’s hand.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I have kleptomania.”

“What?”

“Neurological disorder. I steal things compulsively, I can’t help myself,” Jack explained while adjusting Jeanne’s backpack to fit more comfortably around his jacket.

Jeanne quickly patted her shoulders and spun about, confirming that her backpack was no longer on her back.

“Wha—how did you do that?”

“I’m magic, kit,” Jack replied, handing Jeanne’s bag back to her, “Let me show you: see that guy across the street? Talking on his phone?”

Jeanne looked back to the other side of the road and indeed saw a man in a business suit, shouting into his phone about stock meltdowns and synergy or whatever.

“Yeah, he’s got the new Blackberry.”

“You mean this Blackberry?” Jack replied, holding in front of Jeanne the businessman’s phone. Her head snapped back to the businessman, who was now shouting about suing ghosts or swamp gas or something as he ran in circles, apparently looking for his lost phone.

“You know, I should probably be like, angry or… scared or something, but that was actually really cool,” Jeanne said.

Jack bowed extravagantly and answered, “Thank you, thank you. And don’t worry, Jeanne. I like you, I’ll definitely return all the crap I steal from you.”

As he began to look through the phone’s files and functions, Jeanne asked, “Are you not going to give that guy’s phone back?”

“Hell no!” Jack said, “I don’t relish the thought of getting myself arrested before I figure out cold fusion. Besides, the guy’s a total dickhead.”

“How do you know that?”

“Check out his contact list.”

“Whoa… that is… not a small number of brothels.”

“Seriously. This might seem like something of a non sequitor, but would you like to buy a bicycle seat?”

Jack then pulled Jeanne’s bicycle seat out of his jacket.

“Did you steal that from my bike?”

“Oh, damn. This is yours? Sorry about that, kit.”

“Why would you steal a bicycle seat? It’s just so… pointless.”

“True. The thing is, I was walking past what is apparently your bike a little while back and I got to thinking that I hadn’t stolen anything in a good three minutes, so I figured I’d steal the seat off of the thing and be on my way.”

“Then why didn’t you just steal the whole bike?”

“God, Jeanne, I’m not that huge of an asshole.”

“Are you like, allergic to making sense?”

“I agree.”

Jeanne sighed and said, “Well could I just get my seat back?”

Jack replied, “Sure thing, kit. Truth is, I don’t really want it either. The seat is like, the most useless part of the bike by itself, y’know?”

The girl buried her face in her palms and replied, “Yes. I know.”

Jack stepped around Jeanne and opened her backpack.

“I’ll just leave it in here.”

He dropped the seat into the bag, closed it, and then pulled his notebook and pen out of his jacket once again.

“You’re not counting that as a good deed, are you?”

“Nah, I’m done with those for today. This is for my daily word count. Every day, I use a requisite five words that I don’t know the exact meanings of, y’know, to expand my horizons. With ‘non sequitor,’ I’m up to four.”

While scribbling into his notebook, Jack suddenly stopped, turned to Jeanne, and asked, “Do you think ‘requisite’ counts?”

“I think that you already know what it means.”

“Damn.”

Jack snapped his notebook shut and put it and his pen back into his jacket.

“Well, it’s been fun, kit, but I’ve really got to get going. I’ll call you sometime!”

As Jack dashed off, Jeanne harbored not a single doubt that the young man knew her phone number. On any other day, with any other guy, she would’ve called the cops, but… well… yeah.

A short walk later, Jeanne found herself at her destination. All told, her ten-block trek barely took more than twenty minutes. Of course, due to certain unexpected kleptomaniacal factors, it felt much longer. She dashed up the five flights of stairs, found the room, and banged on the door.

Jack promptly answered the door and asked, “Whoa, hey there kit. How goes it?”

Jeanne spluttered incoherently for several seconds, then mustered the will to ask, “How did you get here before me? Did you, like, teleport or something?”

“Well, actually, I’ve got longer legs than you, which means longer strides and greater distance. It’s like, basic physics, y’know?”

Jeanne closed her eyes and began to rub her temples with her palms.

“Wait, no, I mean, how did you even know that I was heading here?”

“What makes you think that I’m here just because you are? I like you, Jeanne, but you are very self-absorbed sometimes.”

“Oh my god I just want to deliver this package and—”

Jeanne began to frantically dig through her backpack, but it was gone. Gone, gone, gone, like everything that had ever had an ounce of truth or sense since she’d met this guy…

“Looking for this, kit?”

Of course.

Sighing, Jeanne took the package from Jack’s hand.

“You said you’d return everything that you stole.”

“I knew you’d come around here, I figured I’d just give this back to you then. By the way, that’s how I knew you’d be here,” he said, tapping the address printed on the corner of the package.

“All right, all right, I just want to get the Nora Hill’s signature and I’ll be able to go home.”

“Ah… I wouldn’t bank on that.”

“What do you mean?”

“The lady’s senile. Like, in a pretty bad way. I mean, I just knocked on the door and she let me in. I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m a cat or something. I doubt that she’ll be able to sign that for you.”

“Do you really think that she won’t be able to write down her own name?”

Jack leaned backward, faced down the hall, and shouted, “Mrs. Hill!”

“Yes?” a reedy old-woman voice answered, immediately conjuring up images of tea cozies, buttermilk cookies, and other such nonsense.

“Jonah Hex!”

“Yes?”

“Optimus Prime!”

“Yes?”

Jonah turned back to Jeanne.

“See?”

Jeanne was appalled, crying, “I can’t believe that you’d take advantage of this lady’s senility! I bet you’ve been grabbing anything that you can carry from her!”

“I wouldn’t steal from an old woman! How depraved do you think I am?”

“Very! And why is it okay to steal from me?”

“Because I’m a kleptomaniac. Real neurological disorder and everything, remember? Oh yeah, and there’s the whole deal about you being a virgin.”

How did everybody know this?

“But let’s not fight Jeanne, not when we’ve been apart for so long.”

“It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes.”

“Details! In more important news, what the crap is in that package?”

“How should I know?”

“Open it. Duh.”

“I can’t open it, it’s Mrs. Hill’s!”

Jack leaned backwards once again and shouted, “Merry Christmas, Grandma! Can we open our presents now?”

“Oh certainly, dears, but do come in, I want to see your bright, adorable little faces here by the fire.”

Jack stepped out of the doorway and motioned Jeanne to follow.

“You heard the lady, kit. Senile or not, Mrs. Hill has the most awesome tea cozies, buttermilk cookies, and other such nonsense that you’ll ever see.”

Jeanne sighed a bit, and then followed him inside.