Don't be Roadkill

Allaby Treemontan was having a very, very bad day—but he was all right with it. There was nothing in the world that seemed to get Allaby down. His smile was for everyone who crossed his path. His step never once faltered with negative hesitation. He was Santa Clause without the beard and the belly, and his Ho-Ho-Ho’s were continuous “Hello’s!” and “How do you do’s!”

Today was no different, even when it seemed the world was against him.

The power went out in his apartment complex, which meant that his alarm didn’t go off when it was supposed to. He was late for work (a telemarketing company at which he answered phones all day) and his own phone was still uncharged from the night before. He couldn’t even call in to explain his dilemma to his boss.

He got ready for his day, slowly, deciding that since he was already late then a few extra minutes shouldn’t hurt. He left his apartment without showering, woefully unshaven, and more than a little disheveled. He greeted his neighbor, Margaret, with a cheerful “Good morning!” and walked with her to the lobby. He waved to the manager behind the desk who regarded him with tired, pre-caffeinated eyes.

“Aren’t you late for work, Al?” Margaret asked, stowing her keys in the front pocket of her purse with one hand, and smoothing the wild mess that was her hair with the other. This was an unfortunate result of the power outage; her hair was usually shiny and perfect—something that Allaby was always very conscious of.

“Yes,” he admitted with a shrug. “I’m sure they will understand, though. I’m usually very punctual, you know.”

 “Yeah,” she murmured in response. She seemed distracted as she searched her purse for something, found it, and gave a small sigh of relief. “Well, have a good day, Allaby.”

“You as well, Margaret!”

He watched her leave, waiting, thinking that it would be rude to walk out with her when she’d already said goodbye. There was no need to cause her unnecessary discomfort by forcing a second parting. He made do with admiring the way the late morning sun gleamed between the crook in her arm and the slender curve of her waist as she walked away, the small side-to-side movement of her hips, and the way her golden hair fell out of the hasty bun she’d created at the nape of her neck. Its disorganized arrangement fascinated him until she was too far away for him to appreciate it further.

From the apartment complex he made his way to the nearest coffee shop that was on his way to work. He was a regular there. The barista greeted him in the usual manner. She smiled at him genuinely, the sharp squareness of her jaw becoming more pronounced with the upward turn of her thin lips. She finished helping the customer who’d held her attention before Allaby had arrived, and then promptly transferred her concentration to her favorite patron.

“Allaby Treemontan!”

“Good morning, Teresa,” he said cheerfully.

“You’re late,” she said in a tone that registered her surprise. Allaby was never late.

“Yes,” he said, returning her smile. “I’m sure they will understand, though. I’m usually very punctual, you know.”

She chuckled. “Yes, I know. The usual?”

“Of course!”

While Teresa was busy with his usual order Allaby was caught in a disastrous collision. A young woman passing just behind him was paying more attention to her cellphone than to the pair of local college students chatting nearby. One of them took a small step backward at the most ill-fated moment and knocked the woman sideways into Allaby. Her hot coffee spilled all over the back of his white button-up shirt that he’d pressed so carefully the night before, and all down the left leg of the only pair of dress slacks he owned.

Exclamations of shock ensued, followed by a volley of apologies that received a much-grimaced smile. Allaby’s cheerfulness was only difficult to express when he was in serious pain.

“It’s all right, really,” he promised the woman. “Here, let me buy you a fresh cup.”

“No need,” Teresa announced, handing the woman a second cup of coffee. “It’s on the house,” she insisted, and the woman left the shop looking slightly dazed.

“Oh, Allaby!” Teresa exclaimed. “Are you okay?” She came out from behind the counter with handfuls of napkins and attempted to dab the mess from his backside.

He waved her away gently. “I’m fine, really. Thank you. I will tell them what happened at work.” He reached for his wallet to pay for the coffee she had prepared for him but came up empty-handed. He searched his other pockets in confusion. He was sure he’d picked up his wallet as he’d left his apartment earlier. Allaby wasn’t a forgetful person. He glanced around the shop, wondering if he might have dropped it in the chaos. It was nowhere to be found.

“Is something wrong, Allaby?” Teresa asked.

“I seem to have lost my wallet,” he replied, frowning for the first time that morning.

There was a small pause during which Teresa also searched the shop for the missing wallet.

And then, “Oh dear, I think—”

Teresa didn’t have to finish her thought. Allaby noticed that the college students who had been part of the accident earlier were nowhere to be found. They’d disappeared as soon as the woman left with her fresh cup of coffee. The accident had been no accident at all. Allaby’s wallet had been deliberately stolen by coffee-spilling thieves.

“I’ll call the police,” Teresa said, and picked up the phone.

Allaby sighed and took a seat at one of the smaller round tables and smiled at an older man who was watching him with furrowed brows.

“Good morning, sir,” he said brightly.

The man grunted and turned away.

“Allaby, they’re asking for a description of the culprits,” Teresa called to him.

Allaby took the phone, gave the best description he could manage, and then thanked the officer on the phone for his time and efforts.

Teresa offered him the cup of coffee he could no longer pay for, which he declined. He told her to have a wonderful rest of her day and made to leave.

“Where are you going?” Teresa asked, stopping him at the door. “You have to wait for the police to come.” For some reason, she seemed disappointed.

“I have to go find my wallet,” he said sensibly. “My work ID is in there, and I can’t miss work. I’ll just ask the thieves if I can have my ID back. They can keep the rest until the police find them. If I don’t come across them within the next hour, I will come back here to see if it has been returned.”

Teresa frowned, but nodded. She watched him leave with a wistful pout.

Allaby walked down the sidewalk, greeting every person that passed. Some returned his happy hello’s (less happily, of course), and others were caught off guard, responding only with confused expressions.

It wasn’t long before Allaby realized that he was being followed. He stopped and turned, chuckling good-naturedly to himself when he saw the older man from the coffee shop who had refused to return Allaby’s “good morning.”

Accepting that he’d been caught in the act, the man approached Allaby resignedly. He was very short, but stocky, with thinning brown hair and a much thicker beard. His wrinkles showed evidence of an almost permanent frown, and he dressed like he was about to go rob a bank in dark worn jeans and a black hooded jacket. 

“I saw them take it,” he blurted under Allaby’s benign scrutiny. “The thieves from the coffee shop. I saw the woman take your wallet when she bumped into you. She handed it off to the guy who shoved her before you even knew you’d been hit.”

Allaby frowned for the second time that day. Something nearly unheard of.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked in bewilderment.

The man had the nerve to look offended, and said sharply, “There were three of them! I wasn’t going to out them in the middle of a crime when they outnumbered me like that. What if one of them was violent?”

Allaby considered the man’s argument and decided it was reasonable. He smiled again and asked the man politely why he was playing Allaby’s shadow.

The man grunted in annoyance. “Because you’re stupid,” was his response.

“Why would you say that?” Allaby asked, startled by the man’s bluntness.

“A guy like you going after a group of pickpockets? You’re better off just waiting for the police back at the shop with that desperate barista.”

Allaby realized that the man had just insulted both him and Teresa in one breath, but he also understood that the man was frustrated with him and couldn’t be held accountable for the rude things he said or might say.

“I just need my work ID. I’m sure that when I find them we could work out some kind of agreement.”

“Boy, are you thick?”

“No, sir.”

The man snorted and turned as if to walk away. But then he stopped. Unexpectedly, he removed his jacket and, without ceremony, offered it to Allaby. He looked at Allaby with that deep, permanent frown.

“No, thank you. I’m not cold,” Allaby graciously refused.

“It’s to cover up the stain on your back,” the man explained gruffly. “Sorry I didn’t warn you about the pickpockets.”

Allaby took the jacket, recognizing the gesture as a sort of request for forgiveness, and put it on. It fit loosely, the man being so much wider than he was, but it did the job it was intended for.

He thanked the man again and tried to make arrangements for the jacket’s return.

“Stop that,” the man growled. “What’s going through your head? You’re walking around like everybody’s Jesus, and you’re his cheesy-grinning martyr disciple.”

Allaby didn’t respond; he was too busy trying to understand the strange comparison.

“Seriously, nobody likes the clown whose painted face is always smiling, you got that? You keep running out in front of the bus the way you do, you’ll be roadkill every time.”

“I don’t think—”

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t be nice to people,” the man clarified. “I just mean you can’t go through life without complaining. The guy who doesn’t complain about anything never gets what he needs.”

“What is it that I need?” Allaby asked, honestly curious.

The man stared with his mouth open slightly, lost for words, and then, “Forget it.” He shook his head. “Keep the jacket. Have a nice life.” And with that, he departed, leaving Allaby standing in the middle of the walkway wearing another man’s jacket and a dumbfounded expression.

Allaby continued his search for the thieves, but he realized that they would not be waiting for him just down the street, or around the corner past the Party Girls’ Boutique. An hour later he returned to the coffee shop. Teresa didn’t call out his name this time when he walked through the door. She was too busy speaking with a tall officer to notice that he’d arrived. The conversation didn’t seem to be too serious, though, because Teresa giggled and tucked a stray hair behind her ear, so Allaby was not deterred in making his presence known. Teresa always made an effort to give him her full attention no matter what she was doing.

“Hello, Teresa,” he said, taking a seat at the counter.

She spared him a glance. Her smile was not quite as bright as usual.

“Oh, hello, Allaby,” she said with an almost reluctant tone. “Did you find your thieves?”

“No, unfortunately.”

“That’s too bad. Officer Miller was just telling me that they’ve had no luck in tracking down your wallet. He said they will notify you as soon as it’s found. Maybe you should call in to work to tell them what happened. I’m sure they’re missing you by now.”

“Thank you, Teresa. I think I’ll do that.” He wouldn’t have even needed to respond. She was already engrossed again in her conversation with Officer Miller.

Allaby felt the stirrings of something uncomfortable-feeling in the pit of his stomach. He understood that Teresa was distracted, but that had never prevented her from greeting him wholeheartedly before. He felt the loss of that warmth between them and wondered if he’d done anything to deserve it. He thought carefully back on the events of that morning and could find nothing to explain her sudden disinterest. He considered asking her about it momentarily but thought it would be impolite to disrupt their conversation a second time and decided against it.

Allaby left the coffee shop and made his way home, feeling strangely alone despite all the people moving past. He didn’t bother speaking to any of them. He didn’t want to be distracted from his thoughts at the moment; he could sense that he was on the verge of something profound—something that would explain all of this new uncertainty.

Teresa had never been so distant with him, not in the three years he’d been stopping by her coffee shop. So what had changed? Was it because he didn’t take her advice to wait for the police at the shop? Did he accidentally say something that might have hurt her? Perhaps she’d found something unsatisfactory in the way he’d responded to his wallet being stolen. The man who’d given him the jacket certainly had….

He walked without paying a lot of attention to his surroundings, and that was why he bumped into the girl just outside of his apartment complex. She paused the dramatic monologue she’d been giving to her friend just long enough to cry out, “Hey, watch it!” and then she continued on her way.

“Sorry,” Allaby mumbled, long after she was out of earshot.

He was at the door to the lobby when it finally hit him. The girl, he realized, was as equally at fault as he was, and yet she was the one who had received the apology, because she had complained—and loudly at that. Allaby had apologized to her and allowed her to steamroll right over him.

“I’ve been throwing myself in front of the bus!” he exclaimed in the excitement of his discovery.

“Are you talking to me?”

“Huh? Oh, hello, Margaret!”

“Hi, Allaby.”

Margaret was home for her lunch break. She was searching for her keys and walking through the doors into the lobby, distracted again. She barely even noticed that he was following her so closely, watching her frantic search.

He cleared his throat to get her attention, and said, “They’re in the front pocket.”

“Oh, that’s right!” she said, smiling sheepishly. She found her keys and finally looked up at him. Her eyes were brimmed with fatigue, all red and puffy. “Thank you, Allaby.”

“Not a problem. How has your day been?”

“Busy,” she said shortly. “But fine, I guess. Yours?”

“Awful,” he said, emphasizing the word with all the inflections of dismay.

“Really? What happened?”

Without needing any other prompting, he launched into his story, describing every detail of his adventures over the last few hours, and adding a few others that hadn’t actually happened for good measure. He enjoyed the play of expression that showed on the moving contours of her face—the way her red-brimmed eyes would widen, stretching out the tired lines and making them look more like dark blue pools hidden away in a red rock valley. Her full-lipped mouth contorted in all sorts of different ways, from smiles to frowns to O-shaped expressions of shock. Her hollowed cheeks would bunch and fold and stretch with every complaint he shared with her, and he loved that he had caused it.

“Wow, that is awful!” she said when he’d finished.

“It’s all true. I was just going to go up to my apartment to charge my phone, so I could let my boss know why I’ve been missing from work today.”

She nodded. “You should do that.” Her hand reached out to rest on his arm. Its gentle pressure caused his heart to turn in his chest. “And let me know how everything turns out, okay? I really hope you get your wallet back!” She smiled and walked in the direction of her apartment.

Allaby watched her go for the second time that day, but this time was different. He stood in the lobby, grinning to himself in the way that only a person with a newfound secret can. Above him the lights flickered and went out again. He made a mental note to himself to complain about it to management the first chance he got.