“Last Dance with Mary Jane,” my pizza chef Anthony sang the tune off key when he slid over a thick stack of cardboard pizza boxes across the counter to me.

“Don’t fuck this one up or their gonna realize they made a huge mistake,” he added with a stoned cackle.

“Thanks, man.”

This order of five pizzas was the last order I was ever going to deliver. It was 10:43 p.m. on the last day of August and our replacement delivery driver, who would report directly to me, was starting the next day. I was well on my way to climbing the corporate ladder of the business of pizza in rural, Northern Minnesota and even if I am being sarcastic, it did feel good to be good at something, finally.

Once I dropped off these pizzas at some house that was likely having some kind of party, given it was just before closing time on a Saturday. The address I didn’t recognize, combined with the likelihood of a party and the 25 slices of pepperoni I snacked on for a dinner left my stomach uneasy during the drive – balancing out the sweetness of the coming relief of graduating from pizza delivery U.

The balance in my stomach began to tilt in the direction of nausea when the directions I followed led me to Powers Road. A dark, twisting path of rocky asphalt which snaked alongside a river lined with trees. There were only a few houses out here and each and every one of them was probably some kind of meth house. Closing out my career with edgy tweakers was like being a closer in baseball and having Barry Bonds be the last batter you have to face in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and the bases juiced.

A distant memory started to creep into my brain as I drove the long curves of the river with the clear summer moon shining off the chippy water like a fading hologram – I had been on this road many times as a very young kid. It led to a park I hadn’t been to in ages. A park I honestly think most of the town forgot about after they built a brand spanking new park right in the middle of town with a European-inspired fountain, expensive play area and concert stage for those comfortable with keeping their rock n roll dreams on the ground to perform on.

Supervisor Park. That was the name of it. It even had a uninspired, non-memorable name.

I recognized the place when I left the rocky asphalt of the road and pulled off onto the sloppy gravel of a large, vacant parking lot.

I started to hope this was some kind of prank by chef Anthony, get me to drive out to the deserted park at the edge of town in the dark for an order for no one, but the five pizzas cooling in my backseat told me otherwise. It was unlikely he would drop 60 dollars worth of goods on a simply taking the shit out of me.

The park looked exactly the same as I remembered it – tucked a little bit out into the river, all it had was a wooden deck which stretched out just to the edge of the water, a couple of basketball hoops with broken backboards, a muddy baseball diamond, a BBQ area littered with small town gang graffiti and a Pepsi machine – glowing blue in the night. I soaked in the scene and put the car into gear until an unfortunate second glance at the deck on the river put my car back in park.

Someone was out there – the burning end of an active cigarette burning through the dark like a single bright star in a black sky.

“Shit,” my entire body deflated when the word came out of my mouth.

I climbed out of the car, went to the backseat and wrangled the pizza boxes.

There was about 50 yards of open crab grass, blue in the moonlight, between me and the smoking stranger. I started on my way, my head cocked to the side of the cardboard hoping a clear vision of my customer would come into focus soon.

“Hey, hey,” I called out in the smoking stranger’s direction. “Did you order pizza?”