The Name on the Napkin

“Hey! You left this!” Malloy called out after the woman in the red dress who was hurrying out of the place. She was dressed too nicely to be here now; to be here at all. He’d seen her scribbling on it just before she paid her tab and left. It seemed important.

He reached for it, careful not to smear the ink with his damp fingers; from sweat or the condensation from his beer, he didn’t know. The limp two-ply paper flopped over the back of his hand in the humid, Tuesday afternoon bar air.

Malloy shouldn’t be here. He should be at work. Too bad he didn’t have a job at the post office anymore. Going postal wasn’t a phrase used too much these days.

This made it all the more like catnip to the new agencies when he did what he did. “Going postal” was trending on every trend-tracking system there was. He was famous.

Well, infamous.

He hadn’t hurt anyone. He hadn’t pulled a gun on a post customer or something stupid. He’d just set his mail truck on fire.

Really, it was nothing.

Malloy had parked it in the parking lot of a closed-down mall and used six gallons of gasoline to saturate every inch of the cursed vehicle. It was hell on wheels, literally. Day in and day out, he left little chunks of his soul in the cracked pleather seats.

Either it went or he did.

Once he got the fire going, Malloy sat down in a camp chair a safe, roasty-toasty distance away and roasted marshmallows until the authorities and fire department came. He forgot the graham crackers and chocolate. It was a damn shame.

He was out on bail now. He wasn’t sure how long cirrhosis of the liver took to kill you, but he was determined to let it take hold of him. He liked to imagine he could feel the organ in question harden to stone.

Malloy flipped the napkin upright so he could read it. Her handwriting was loopy and uninhibited and accented by a lipstick kiss.

You’re my hero XOXO

-Aryia

Her phone number was listed too. He pulled out his phone and dialed. Maybe cirrhosis could wait.