Driving Doctor Mayhem

[12] Little Talks

Perhaps, now is the best time to describe Doc's office, although I guess the title office might be a bit generous, because what he called his 'office' most people call the top floor of a lower-middle-class apartment complex. The place was mainly inhabited by elderly people who were still living in the nineteen sixties in their heads.

One time, a perpetually cranky gentleman, whose name I later learned was Larry, stopped by and asked us for a cup of sugar. Horribly unprepared for that sort of a social situation, I offered him salt instead. After that, the guy treated me like an absolute basket-case, but there's also a chance that was brought on by my choice of employer and not the fact that I saw salt as a suitable substitute for sugar.

Most likely, it was a combination of the two.

On the elevator ride to the office every weekday, I crossed paths with the lady on the floor below us, Norma, as she came back from her graveyard shift. She was the only resident that I ever met who didn't completely hate Doc, and she was, oddly enough, a cop.

"So, you're working for Doctor Mayhem now, huh?" she whispered the next week.

"Yep."

Nodding towards the fast food bags I was holding, she asked, "He still collect Happy Meal toys?"

I broke into a grin. "Yeah, just blue dinosaurs. It's weird, right?"

"You learn some pretty odd stuff about folks during drug busts, that's for sure."

"A drug bust?"

"Yeah," she murmured, "What a waste of time; everyone knows he always acts that way. Mayhem is a lot of things, but a junkie? Not the type. Doesn't have the constitution."

She shot a sharp glance at Larry, who shrugged indifferently in his corner of the elevator. "I had my reasons," he grumbled.

I wasn't sure I wanted to know the story behind that exchange.

We settled into a comfortable silence before I broke it with, "Like what kind of things?"

"Well, his real name isn't Doctor Mayhem for starters."

"Positively shocking. What else?"

"Sorry, kiddo, sworn to secrecy. I don't make the rules."

"You remind me of a friend," I said. "Cricket. He loves rules."

"An annoying friend, I'm guessing?"

"Only at times. He has my best interests at heart, always."

"So, yes, is all I'm hearing."

"Just a little," I giggled as the door dinged open at her floor. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

She stumbled out, yanking her hair from of its tight bun."Yeah, tomorrow!"

"Doctor Mayhem is a nuisance, that's what he is," Larry piped up. "He steals. Stole the ice from my fridge. Stole my eggs. What kind of a person steals a poor old man's eggs?"

I sighed patronizingly--because I was at the stage in my life when I thought the world was made up of people who weren't as smart as I was--and said, "Now, what on Earth would Doc want with your eggs, Mr. Larry?"