E-peshawari
Copyright© 2015 by Old Man with a Pen
Chapter 1
I was driving a very slow box truck up a very narrow road up very steep hill. Josie was grinning like a mad woman. She opened her mouth and gibberish poured forth.
I understood every word.
“Mr. Jackson?” she asked.
“Miss Josie?”
“Have you looked in the mirror lately?” she asked.
“What good would it do me? I know there are cars lined up behind me for miles. There’s no place to pull over. The other lane is thick as fleas on a blue tick hound in a tall grass field. They’re just going to have to suffer,” I said.
This was like the logging road, except this one was paved, and going up instead of down ... steep to it’s called ... it was all of that.
Blind corners abound, the main difference were the overpasses. The road doubled back several times and we drove under where we would be driving on in a few miles. No problem.
Except.
For some odd reason the locals parked their cars under the overpasses. Sans parkers, the crowd behind could have passed but it was difficult enough to thread the way through the parked cars. Some of them had been parked long enough to be dust caked.
I didn’t care, I just kept driving. On the hairpins, Josie proved her worth.
“Left just a little,” she said, as a 1964 Mustang had its nose stuck a bit far into the traffic. As the box came around I had to duck right to miss oncoming traffic in my lane. On the other side of the road was a monstrous 1941 Cadillac Series 75 limousine complete with the suicide doors in the back ... showroom perfect.
We E-Peshawari never threw anything away.
“What are we delivering?” I asked Josie.
“‘Shine,” she said.
“Read that invoice again,” I suggested, “I’m awfully busy.”
“226930 Blue Hill Road, Tony’s Speak. 2650 one gallon milk-jugs JJ Brown’s Pure Corn Squeezins’ Liquor... 1766 six pack flats Green Glass Ball jars with lids and rings ... ten thousand six hundred pre printed labels. To pick up: all clean returns.” She kept reading to herself, then she said, “Tony will try to send all the empty jars he has. We only take green ones. Mr. Brown will charge us a dime each for the wrong color.”
“Why does he do that?” I asked.
“Says right here. ‘Because I have to take them to their owners’, Wait.” She turned the invoice over. Reading; “‘No! They won’t come get them.’” She laughed.
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