Multidimensional Cookie

Joe has done this damn drive far too many times to count. Endless hours traversing the coast, weaving through traffic as the minutes float away like balloons and his sanity dwindles to flickering gossamer in the candle of his mind. Sometimes the time moves as heavy weights being dragged across gravel, other times it moves so quickly he feels like he’d just teleported from San Diego to San Francisco without so much as a blink of the eye. Listening to music helps – Bob Dylan’s Blood on The Tracks, John Mellencamp’s American Fool, and Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run have all aided in his hypothetical teleportation, have gotten his big rig over the Grapevine and up the I-5 when the exhaustion has wrapped its tendrils around his mind and zombified his inner soul.

He’s been driving this truck since the Regan administration, since before Nirvana and the grunge scene, since before Y2K and the Kool-Aid suicides. Hell, he’d been on the road for days during the September 11 attacks and didn’t even hear about them until the President had already launched war on Al-Quada and the media had started hating all the Muslims. He doesn’t listen to the news, nor the radio – only listens to his CD’s. One time while he was switching CD’s, his Creedence Clearwater Revival slipped through his legs and got wedged beneath his seat. In the split second he bent down to retrieve it he missed the Toyota merging into his lane. By the time he was upright the thing was already crunched up like a tin can. It was a real mess. Shrapnel and glass laid asunder across the highway, smoke rose in pillows from the former Toyota, ambulances screamed and wailed, and his own latch in the back of the truck had popped open. There were cookies spilling from the rear by the boxful.

Thankfully nobody had been severely hurt. The Toyota driver was banged up a bit and his car was totaled, but it was the lack of casualties which meant Joe didn’t lose his job on that fateful day in ’97. The Creedence even managed to survive, though Joe has since lost his taste for the band as it stabs him with the reminder of his biggest failure in 30 years working as a deliveryman for the Pacific Coast Cookie Company.

Diane is 100% certain that tonight is the night. Her and Jack have been dating exactly four years, have lived together for two years, and have met each other’s parents without committing homicide. They can finish each other’s sentences, both love the 49-ers, and are in agreement that the movie Inception was an overly-hyped POS. The sex is fantastic. The conversation is dynamic. They are both employed and healthy. There is absolutely no reason they should not be married, which is why Diane is 100% certain that Jack is going to ask her to marry him tonight.

They are celebrating their anniversary at the site of their first date – Stagnero Bros. Fish House on the pier. Four years ago Diane had just been a scared girl practically breathing into a paper bag before her big date with the guy who had hit on her while she was catering a wedding. Jack was the grooms little brother, and was four flutes of champagne deep, but he zoned in on her like an investment banker on a potentially lucrative asset. He followed her out to the concourse towards the end of the evening and gave her an ultimatum: either she go on a date with him the following Friday, or he’d start singing Rockstar by Nickelback at the top of his lungs and wouldn’t stop until she either used violent force or agreed to go on the date. She hesitantly took him up on the former offer and lived with a nervous pit in her stomach for the next week.

She’d barely been able to cough up a word during their first dinner – barely touched her lobster bisque. He’d been a savant of sorts- cultured, intelligent, had travelled the world and pilfered the tiny shampoo bottles from every hotel he stayed at. She was enamored by him, wasn’t put off by his superiority complex or innate narcissism – she just loved the deep baritone in his voice, the citrus and sage smell which traced his every step and lingered long after he’d left. She’d been scared by her immediate feelings towards him – but look at her now, four years later, putting on a satin dress and wondering how exactly Jack is going to pop the question.

Joe sometimes surprises himself with just how far his thoughts can boomerang on one of his drives. Right now he can’t stop thinking about his Mama. She was one helluva woman – could silence you with a stare and make any man flinch with a raise of her hand. Cooked like the dickens too; he still dreams about her gumbo, remembers the way her robust arms lugged the pot of boiling shrimp across the room like it was full of feathers. Then she’d stir and sing the blues, her notes sliding from out of her throat and into the hallway where the kids would be odalisqued on the floor in a mush of contentment. She was one helluva woman.

Thinking about her nearly brings a tear to his eyes. It’s been ten years since she passed away, but every year the pain seems to spread further as it grows longer and longer since he last watched the wrinkles around her eyes collapse into bellowing laughter, since he last got to hold her hand in prayer over a glorious bounty of jambalaya and spiced peaches. He wonders if she’d be proud of the man he is today. Probably not. He never got to settling with a woman of his own, never finished up that college degree or progressed his tinkering with electronics to anything other than fixing busted microwaves and washer machines. He just drives. Drives and thinks about Mama, then sometimes he drives and thinks about nothing.

He’s just gotten going with the thinking about nothing when a rhythmic tapping begins pouring in from the rear of the truck. He squeezes the bridge of his nose; this is nothing he is in the mood for right now. He is making good time, but if he has to stop and tend to the rattling noise he could end up stuck in 5 o’ clock traffic until the moon ascends. He decides to keep on driving; it’s probably not a big deal.

Jack is leaning over the railing of the pier, his hands fiddling around with a 24-carat princess-cut diamond ring. He’s had it for six months now, the delay in its deliverance more so to do with his own cowardice than waiting for the “opportune moment.” But tonight is the night. He knows she is expecting it, will be unbelievably disappointed if the proposal does not occur, thus the hour is nigh to either nut up or bust.

Jack has always been terrified of marriage. His parents divorced when he was seven and it was a year-long, drawn out, drama fest. Splitting up the assets was one thing, but splitting up custody for him and his brother was a whole other leech on his psyche. He felt like property, and even more so, he felt like custody over him was being used by one parent specifically to hurt the other. It didn’t feel like either of them loved him- they were so caught up in their anger towards each other that they allowed it to fuel their every waking conscious. They went from being husband and wife to worst enemies, using every opportunity to try and turn their children against the other parent.

Jack’s brother, Chris, got married four years ago, and in the months leading up to it everyone got to see just how comprehensively two people can hold onto anger. The planning was a nightmare – constant battles, virulent emails, threats of not even showing up from both Jack’s parents. Chris’s wife got to see the full extent to which a family of wealth also comes with a truckload of emotional baggage and anger. Chris was ready to elope, had already booked a hotel in Las Vegas, but it was exactly this threat which convinced Jack’s parents to put their petty bullshit aside and put their son once for the first time in seventeen years.

Everyone was rip-roaring belligerent at the wedding. Jack’s mom had even snuck in a flask of Everclear and his Dad had told the bartender to “Keep the scotch and soda’s coming until he was facedown on the table” – which did in fact happen. Jack had amply imbibed at the open bar, which led to him a) fumbling over his best man speech, b) urinating in the marble fountain out in the foyer, and c) annoying Diane into going on a date with him. He couldn’t help himself. She was like this flittering little woodland faerie – ochre hair, big brown eyes, skin that looked soft enough to suddenly liquidate. She was bustling around between the formally attired, overly made-up woman – clearing their plates, refilling their champagne, all without making eye contact. Her apron had been viscid with eight different kinds of melted cheese.

After their first date he didn’t know if he really wanted to get into her pants or if he actually felt something approximating love – he didn’t know what love was. But now after four years he can say that he not only loves her, but he is going to spend the rest of his life with her.

His plan for the ring is to put it inside of a red-velvet cupcake – her favorite, and have her bite into it after they’ve finished eating dinner. This is why he is outside of Stagnero Bros. Fish House an hour before the date – he needs to give them the ring, and once he does so, there is no turning back. They will bake it into the cupcake and then there it will be, and by the time she is holding it between her little pink fingers, Jack will already be on one knee, ready to deliver the speech he’s been writing for the last six months. The speech includes a reference to Shakespeare. Very unique.

He goes back to playing with the ring, turning it over and over in his hands. It is perfect for her. He saw it in the glass case and knew immediately this was the one for her – the perfect combination of delicate and unique. She might get mad at him for how much he spent, but money is not an issue. Especially if it can be used to make Diane happy. The band is especially perfect for her – rustic gold with a thin strip of diamonds curving along the edge. The diamond is a circle, with tiny sapphires flowering out from the center. Sapphire is Diane’s birthstone.

Behind Jack, a man on roller skates underestimates his breadth while turning, slips on the splintered wood curb, stumbles through a flock of seagulls, and lurches forward into Jack like a bat out of hell. Jack first feels his stomach be forcefully pushed up into the railing, then feels his hands turn to Jello while the rest of his body stings from every cell. The wind is knocked out of him, the man on skates is profusely apologizing, but all Jack can think is: he dropped the goddamn ring into the ocean.

A halibut swims by and swallows the ring whole.

“The highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive! Everybody’s out on the run tonight – but there’s no place left to hide! Baby we were born to rrruuuuuunnnnn!” Joe belts out his favorite song as he curves around highway 1.

The tapping has been going on for three hours and Joe has decided to drown it out with the sound of his own unfortunate attempt at baritone. He’s made it through all of Tom Petty’s greatest hits, the best of Johnny Cash, and now he is having a blast with The Boss: Bruce Springsteen. He was going to listen to the whole album, but he finds himself hitting repeat on Born To Run once more. It’s just so good – a metaphor for his life perhaps.

Nobody spends as much time alone on the open road as him, but he prefers this to being back home in his microscopic apartment. No woman has set foot in there in the last decade, thus it is a category-five disaster zone. He’s been growing a pile of newspapers for the past six months, and a pile of dishes for the last ten years. He doesn’t even use dishes anymore – sticks to paper and plastic ware – which covers almost every inch of his congoleum floor. Going home to him feels like walking into a two-dimensional paper world were nothing makes sense nor registers as part of his atmosphere. Going home means drinking bourbon from a plastic cup and watching re-runs of Roseanne. He prefers to drive.

After the seventh consecutive time listening to Born To Run, the tapping in the back sounds as though it is tapping exactly to the beat of the song. Joe turns down the music to a very low volume and perks his ears towards the tapping. The tapping is moving exactly to the song – every note in Bruce’s voice echoed throughout the rear of the truck. This continues.

Joe pulls into the closest gas station. He tells himself it’s because he has to take a leak, but also he needs to see just what in the hell is going on back there. He yanks out the keys in his ignition and stomps back around the truck. He unlatches the hooks and cranks the rear door open. He squints into the darkness, looking for something, anything, to explain what’s been happening for the last four hours. There are boxes upon boxes of high quality cookies, all with bourgeoisie flavors: “Dark Chocolate Coconut Almond”, “Cherub Chip Mint Florentine”, “White Chocolate Raspberry Macadamia Nut” – long gone are the days of traditional “Chocolate Chip”.

The tapping is still occurring, louder and louder. Joe is pretty sure he’s identified the source, and pushes aside a dozen boxes of “Caramel Coconut Truffle Nugget”, to find a Dancing Cookie.

“What the hell?” says Joe.

The Dancing Cookie stares at Joe through its white chocolate eyes, smiles with its macadamia nut teeth, and returns to dancing around in the floor of the truck. It can tango, it can salsa, it can two-step and waltz and do the cha-cha. This Cookie would get first place in Dancing With The Stars. It is that good.

“Hey sorry, broh. I hope you don’t mind, I’m just doing some dancing back here,” says the Dancing Cookie.

“Well, ugh, you’re being kinda loud. Can you possibly keep it down?” says Joe.

“Yeah no problem, broh.”

“Okay, cool, thanks.”

Joe takes a leak and goes back to driving up the coast. It is silent for a while, but after a while he begins to hear the tapping again.

“Fuck that Dancing Cookie,” Joe grumbles to himself.

Stagnero Bros. Fish House is known for having the freshest fish in all of Santa Cruz. Inhabiting the furthest sector of the Pier, it has an entire fleet of boats underneath for the sole purpose of going out and getting fresh sea specimen at a moment’s notice. Their fresh seafood congealed with their culinary masterpiece has landed them on magazine covers, at the top of many “Best Of” lists, and in one or two lawsuits regarding ‘diseased fish too close to pier’ and people who consumed said diseased fish ‘exploding out both ends like Mt. St. Helens’. Thankfully, Stagnero Bros. also has some incredible lawyers.

Not necessarily good in crisis scenarios, Jack decided to continue with the date, despite not having a ring and despite possessing a superstition that losing said ring was the universe telling him not to marry Diane. He now finds himself overly critical of her every word, wondering if he’s actually been in love the last four years, or if it has all been one giant game to him. One giant conquest to see if he was capable of love after seeing his parent’s rip each other apart for years. He wonders if he has he just been pretending this whole time, because right now he feels nothing, nothing other than hunger.

Diane looks beautiful, but she doesn’t feel beautiful. Jack seems distant for some reason. She can always tell when he’s working something over in his mind – he gets this little crinkle between his eyebrows and his pillowy lips tighten against each other. His smile when he first saw her seemed void of the usual love and admiration. Had she done something wrong? Does the dress she’s wearing make her look fat? She can’t figure it out – it is probably nothing, she could just be nervous because tonight’s the night. But the anxious inner monologue won’t quiet. She finds herself acting as taciturn as she had four years ago on her first date, and wonders if she’s ever really stopped feeling a sense of nervousness whenever Jack is around. Maybe what she has considered love this whole time was really just a need to gain the approval of a wealthy, good-looking, bachelor. Maybe that is why he has always made her so anxious.

Twenty-minutes into their date, Diane and Jack are reconsidering their relationship.

“That’s it, motherfucker. Your dancing days are done.” Joe screams.

He rips the steering wheel to the right and gets off the first exit he sees. His big rig climbs a cement hill while the tiny veins around Joe’s eyes begin to bulge. The tapping has not stopped for six hours. He has requested nicely that the Dancing Cookie be more quiet, but this thing keeps dancing if it wants to and leaving its friends behind. Joe was patient at first – liked the concept of not being completely alone in his truck, entertained the notion of making a new dancing friend. But fuck it all. Joe can’t stand it anymore. He’s finding the first beach he can and tossing that little piece of shit to the fishes.

He cruises down a street called “Ocean” and correctly assumes that it does, in fact, lead to the Ocean. Looking on either side of his truck, he is very confused about the layout of this random town he landed in. There is a residential home, then a gas station, then a tattoo parlour, then a frozen yogurt place, all in a row. Joe postulates that these city planners had been hitting the ganja while doing the layout for this weird town. There is also no parking. He circles around for twenty minutes before finding a place to wedge his truck in. He doesn’t feed the meter – this will be quick.

He stomps behind back with his fists balled and his forehead burning with fiery hatred. He cranks open the back door and glares at the dancing cookie.

“Whats up, broh?” says the Dancing Cookie.

Joe reaches forward and grabs the Dancing Cookie in the palm of his wiry hands.

“I’ve had it with your shit, Dancing Cookie. You’ve got to go.”

“Please, please don’t do this. I’ll stop, I promise,” pleads the Dancing Cookie.

“Nope. It’s too late. Sayonara, Dancing Cookie.”

Joe pulls his arm back, does his best pitcher’s wind-up, and launches the Dancing Cookie deep into the ocean. A halibut swims by and swallows the Dancing Cookie whole.

Joe gets back in his car and keeps on driving. He prefers to be alone.

Dimension 438

“So how was your day?” asks Diane.

“Eh, it was okay. Got some work done, watched some soccer. How about you?” says Jack. His voice is flat. His eyes are out the window.

“Umm, I worked on your anniversary present.” Diane’s voice is nearly adenoidal, her anxiety now seeping into her lungs and sinuses.

She reaches from below her and produces a brown paper package tied with a taffeta string. She hesitantly pushes it towards Jack, and he stares down at it as though it is about to detonate.

“Go ahead, open it.”

He reaches to open it when the waitress comes by to ask what they would like to order for dinner. Jack orders Lobster. Diane orders the halibut.

Jack continues opening the package. Instead of untying the string, he roughly pulls it off the corners. He pries the lid open, and rips through the crepe paper inside. He still can’t feel anything. His hands come upon a rectangular object located in the bottom of the box and he roughly lifts it out – expecting cologne or a watch or something. It is a scrapbook. He turns through the pages – the pages of their life together. There are goofy photos of Diane and Jack wearing giant sunglasses from the time they went to the fair. There are photos of their trip to Napa Valley for wine tasting, her smiling ear-to-ear while he kisses her cheek. There are photos from her birthday two years ago, the birthday he bought her a camera. She is laying on the couch with her head in his lap, her arms extended above the two of them, taking self-portraits while making a whole collection of hilarious faces.

He feels so stupid. How could he think he doesn’t love this girl for even one second? His heart warms, and he reaches across the table and grasps her small hand inside of his own.

“Thank you, Diane. I love it so much, and I love you so much. Don’t ever doubt that.”

“I love you too, Jack. I’ve loved all the time we’ve shared together.”

He wishes he had the ring right now.

The waitress returns with their food. Jack’s Lobster is a monster on the plate, surrounded with piles of garnish and little ceramic cups of melted butter. Diane’s halibut is in ‘el dorado’ style – it is an entire fish, complete with eyes, that must be picked right off the bone. They both dig in. Jack tucks a cloth napkin into his collar and still manages to drip butter onto his nice tie. Diane finishes half of the halibut before her fork clings against something hard and circular.

Her heart leaps, could this be it? Did Jack have the kitchen staff stick the ring inside of the fish? A little unorthodox, sure, but then again it would be just like Jack to do something this unexpected and weird. She watches his face – he is doing a great job keeping his poker face. She smiles and peels back the skin of the fish, preparing her pleasantly surprised face and getting ready to fill her eyes with tears and say “Yes, oh my gosh, yes!”

Once the skin has been peeled back, Diane gapes. The Dancing Cookie smiles at her.

“No fucking way,” says Diane.

Dimension 683

“So how was your day?” asks Diane.

“Eh, it was okay. Got some work done, watched some soccer. How about you?” says Jack. His voice is flat. His eyes are out the window.

“I went shopping.” Diane says pointedly.

“Oh, cool.”

“Aren’t you going to ask what I went shopping for?” Diane puts her hands on her hips and squints beyond Jack’s forehead.

“Yah, what did you go shopping for?” Jack hates when Diane drives the entire conversation. Which is pretty much always.

She reaches from below her and produces a brown paper package tied with a taffeta string. She quickly pushes it towards Jack, and he stares down at it as though it could offer the same amount of stimulation as a pen cap.

“Go ahead, open it.”

He reaches to open it when the waitress comes by to ask what they would like to order for dinner. Jack orders Lobster. Diane orders the halibut.

He was right – it is cologne. Giorgio Armani’s new scent. The tenth bottle he’s been gifted from Diane in the last four years of their relationship. He is concerned that she seems to be always trying to make him smell better. Jack wonders if he has some sort of ungodly natural scent that compels her to give him cologne for every goddamn occasion.

“Do you like it?”

“Yeah, it’s great. Thanks Honey.”

Jack is happy he lost the ring. He doesn’t think this is the girl for him, after all.

The waitress returns with their food. Jack’s Lobster is a monster on the plate, surrounded with piles of garnish and little ceramic cups of melted butter. Diane’s halibut is in ‘el dorado’ style – it is an entire fish, complete with eyes, which must be picked right off the bone. They both dig in. Jack tucks a cloth napkin into his collar and still manages to drip butter onto his nice tie. Diane finishes half of the halibut before her fork clings against something hard and circular.

She doesn’t notice, and she keeps on eating in silence, until the next bite she is about to take contains something round and shiny. It is a 24-carot princess cut diamond ring with her birthstone circling the outer edge. Her heart stops. Jack looks up from his Lobster and fixes his eyes upon the tip of Diane’s fork.

“No fucking way,” says Jack.