Driving Doctor Mayhem

[37] Pizza Friday III

Another thing about Cricket Riddley: he was a creature of habit. So, when my newly hectic schedule with Doctor Mayhem kept me from seeing him as often as he was accustomed to, it wasn't well received on his end. "At least," he'd told me, "I know I'll get to see you every Friday."

And so, even though I'd just lived through the craziest day of my life, I phoned in a pizza order from the first name in the phone book like I always did and Cricket showed up precisely at 6:00 like he always did, and I could pretend that everything was the same.

One thing that I couldn't ignore was the fact that by the end of that day, Doc had filled my head with a boatload of knowledge that I couldn't repeat. It was torture for a person as loudmouthed as I was, especially when said person has grown particularly accustomed to sharing even the most insignificant details of her life with her goody-two-shoes of a best friend.

Alas, Doctor Mayhem had specifically warned me, "Don't tell this to your rodent-y boyfriend."

So, as I was sitting across from him at my coffee table the following night, I'd fallen uncharacteristically silent, tracing designs into the carpet and avoiding any and all eye contact.

"Pass the bread sticks, please, Banksy."

Mayor Collodi is a criminal.

I passed the bread sticks.

"Phew, they're garlic-y tonight!"

It's sort of like whenever I stole all of the toys from your dollhouse by taking them one at a time. You never noticed until it was too late, and they were already in sunny Mexico with my Barbie in her aggressively pink Jeep.

I nodded.

"The sauce is, uh, good, though."

Except, instead of toys, he stole money, and instead of taking it from a dollhouse, he took it from his campaign funds. Embezzlement might be a better description.

I hummed.

He started nervously tapping his foot.

But we fixed everything.

By doing the exact same thing to him.

It's okay that we did it, for some reason.

I think.

After I let the foot-tapping continue for a little bit longer, I blurted out, "How do you feel about vigilante justice, Cricket?" taking a quick sip from my off-brand soda.

"Like Bernie Goetz?" he whispered, his eyes widening.

I laughed nervously, "God, no. Like... like Robin Hood. Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, that sort of thing."

Cricket sucked on his lips for a second, before saying, "You know, in a few early versions of Robin Hood, he gets leeched to death by his enemy. Maybe not someone you should, uh, aim to emulate."

"But don't you think that if you see something bad in the world, you should fix it?"

After chewing on the question for a while, he eventually said, "Who is it bad for, and why do you want to fix it?"

"Well, there's an over-generalized response."

He shrugged. "Well, it was an over generalized question."