THE POSTMEN
By Reilly Keen
Episode 2: Eggs of the Benedict
I woke up inside my packed up apartment building. There were cardboard boxes surrounding me on every side, which could be attributed to me being too lazy to unpack just yet.
It had been just yesterday I walked into the old building on Biddle Street and got my job as a transcriber for an investigative group.
I reminded myself that I had to get up fairly early considering I had to catch a bus to get to where I’m working now. I quickly showered, got dressed, grabbed a pop tart my roommate bought and headed out the door.
I walked into the Postman’s building that morning not knowing what to expect.
After all, the last time I had been there I was ambushed by a raccoon and yelled at by a literal sock puppet.
But I walked in somewhat excited. I was going to be a transcriber of sorts, and at the university I went to I had been trained somewhat in being a court reporter. But when I went in I was immediately greeted by the owner of the building telling me to go into the garage where I went into the death trap that had been called the “Trash Panda”. Ross was telling me about some movie he had watched the other night.
“So there’s this naked guy, different from the first one but still from the future in this alley and this hobo sees him BUT SASHA DOESN’T SEE HIM BECAUSE SHE’S ON THE OTHER SIDE OF TOWN!” Ross almost screamed at me in his grovelly voice.
“Are you sure you’re not talking about The Terminator?”
Ross rolled his eyes. “That’s that movie about the guy with the laser nunchuck, Platts! Now stay with me here…”
He continued this for a while, as we drove around downtown and seemingly out of Baltimore as I neglected to ask where we were going. We stopped in front of a very garish, out of place building that looked like something out of a science fiction movie. “THE EGG STAR” was scaffolded onto it in bright, neon pink letters. We all got out of the car and Mike was the first to go in, nearly tripping as he walked to the steel doors.
As I walked inside I saw something that looked like a 50’s diner with a hastily-painted interior. Under the robot heads that sat at every table you could see the bottom of one of those tiny music players. A somewhat quiet techno music sound was playing. We were sat at a table near the corner and I grabbed a menu, looking through it.
“Verne?”
I looked up.
Clara asked, “So how are you liking Baltimore?”
I shrugged. “I mean, I’ve only been here two weeks but it seems fine.”
Mike slurred, “Has he gone to jupsupbuprup?”
I was very confused. “Jupsupbuprup?”
Ross was looking away, but said “I think he means crabcake’s mini-golf.”
I stared at him. “How did you get that?”
Ross replied, “I know Mike, I know his language.”
Ross took off his sunglasses, revealing a gray eye color. He looked around the room a bit more.
I said, “What are you looking for, Ross?”
Clara answered, “The girl who works here that he has a crush on.” She gave Ross a very smug looking smirk, almost seeming as if she said it just to piss him off. Bob Karma, Clara’s boyfriend and resident guy who could snap me in half without really trying
Ross muttered, “Shut up.” He gritted his teeth a little, and I returned to looking at the menu.
“Yeah, I haven’t gone to Calico’s golf.”
“Crabcake’s mini golf.”
“Whatever.”
Ross looked over for a second. “We should go. It’s nice outside.”
Mike scratched his head and said, “I think it’s closed sundays…”
I shrugged. “Maybe another time. Although I don’t get why we’re going golfing when we should be doing work.”
Clara put down the menu. “First of all, mini golf. And we do work maybe one day per week if we aren’t doing an investigation.”
A woman walked by to us and Ross tensed up. She had long black hair, and was wearing a leather jacket, jeans, with a “EGG STAR” shirt under the jacket. “Hey guys, whatcha want? Who’s the new guy?” She had a New York sounding accent, although not a very heavy one.
Ross cleared his throat and pointed at me. “That’s Verne. Remember how I said I was looking for a guy to chronicle our stuff?”
She nodded.
“That’s him. Verne, meet Eris Harttung.”
Eris brought out a notepad and a pen. “Pleased to meet you. What do you guys want?”
We put our orders in, I had toast with scrambled eggs. Bob had apparently used morse code to say his order. Eris left to add our group to the waitlist.
Clara, behind her phone, said, “Oof. Ross, Pirates lost.”
Ross sighed, “Again? Man, they really suck this year.”
“The Pittsburgh Pirates?” I asked.
Ross nodded. “Yeah, I’m from the area. North Hills.”
“You know, this could be good for the journal.” I grabbed the sketchbook and got into a writing position. “How’d you start working for the Postman’s Investigation Group?”
Ross polished his glasses and put them back on. “Well, I was born in Pittsburgh, grew up there, the whole nine yards. I went to university, but that’s a bit of a long story. The point if I told that story would be that I was planning on moving to Boston, but my roommate told me he had cheap tickets there, but they ended up actually being for Baltimore. I ended up liking the city and decided to stay, and Mike over here, we became friends when we met at a bar. He ended up telling me about the Private Investigation group he was starting, and I gladly joined.”
I remembered the sock puppet, Pierre, that I met yesterday. The cold, beady eyes of the creature had given me nightmares last night, weirdly enough. “Where’s Pierre?”
Ross shrugged. “Pierre really only likes to talk when he meets new employees or when we’re talking to investigative suspects.”
That got my attention. “You guys do interrogations?”
Clara nodded. “Usually when we end up investigating.”
Ross continued, “We don’t usually look for investigative work, the work looks for us.”
Ross looked pretty proud of himself for thinking of that, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was a somewhat established phrase.
We got our meals and ate. The food was fairly good, and you could definitely taste the cheese in the scrambled eggs.
Ross reached into his back pocket and grabbed a pen and a pad of paper. He scribbled quickly and folded the paper, putting it on the table. “You guys want any desserts?”
I gave him a quizzical look. “Dessert? At this time? It’s only, like, eight in the morning.”
Clara nodded. “Yeah, that’s dessert time.” She patted Bob’s shoulder, saying, “What do you want, baby?”
Bob said lightly, “Morning cheesecake.”
Apparently, a morning cheesecake was like a regular cheesecake but with bacon and egg yolk on it. The rest of them loved it but I had a bite (taking out the bacon, as I’m vegetarian), and it tasted like a fruit with sour cream and guacamole inside. I had to resist spitting it up entirely.
Trying to distract myself from the horrible taste, I asked Ross what the piece of paper was, to which he said nothing. Mike ended up paying the bill, and we took our leave.
When we got back to the postman’s building I sat at my cubicle for a bit writing all of this down onto the journal, transcribing from my notebook. Ross, while I was doing it, got a text from the waitress at the restaurant, agreeing on some sort of date. It was another somewhat slow day but tomorrow would end up being the first glimpse of the Investigative Group’s detective skills.