The November weather, which was normally pretty nice, had suddenly turned ugly. Low hanging storm clouds darkened the sky from horizon to horizon. The wind seemed to blow hard one minute and then drop down to barely a stir the next.
Dan pulled into the strip mall to look at a vacant store. He parked in front of a dry cleaner and got out. It seemed to him that the parking lot was a little too small to support much traffic. He looked up at the sky with a sick feeling in his stomach. At best, it looked like they'd receive a hail storm. At worst, it would be a tornado. It was pretty late in the year for a tornado, but it wasn't unknown to happen.
Feeling uneasy, he walked over to the vacant store and looked through the window. The realtor was supposed to meet him there, but there was no sign of the man. He tried the door and found it was locked. A chill went down his spine when the light suddenly turned a sickly green color. With a sickening suddenness, the wind stopped.
Dan stepped to the edge of the sidewalk and looked up at the sky. He looked back at the half dozen stores in the strip mall. There was the empty store, the dry cleaner, a pharmacy, a card store, an eyeglass shop, and a convenience store. He watched a middle-aged woman park her car and go into the convenience store. He looked back up at the sky and then at the horizon. To no one in particular, he said, "This doesn't look good."
It was almost time for school to get out and the streets were crowded with soccer moms in their SUVs. They were running last minute errands before going to pick up the kids from school. Dan spotted a sedan trying to make a left turn into the parking lot and wondered if it was the realtor. He looked up above the car and spotted the twister slowly dipping down to the ground. It was headed in his direction.
Dan stared at the tornado for a full five seconds trying to comprehend what he was seeing. As it touched the ground, he ran to the door of the dry cleaner and opened it. He shouted, "A tornado is coming! Take cover!"
He ran down the length of the strip mall stopping at the door of each business to shout a warning. He didn't bother to wait to see if anyone responded or not. When he reached the convenience store, he ran inside shouting, "A tornado is coming. A tornado is coming."
A woman screamed and ran for the door. He stopped her as a sound like that of a train passing filled the air. Grabbing her, he looked around and spotted the walk-in cooler. Not bothering to ask permission, he ran through the storeroom door pulling the woman along with him. He passed by a kid and grabbed him as well. The woman was screaming as if Dan was going to rape her. The kid was crying. The guy behind the counter shouted, "You can't go in there!"
Releasing the woman, Dan opened the door to the cooler. He grabbed the woman before she could run away and pulled her and kid into the very cold room with him. Another customer had decided that Dan had the right idea and followed him into the cooler. They had barely gotten inside when there was a horrible ripping sound. To be heard over the noise, Dan shouted, "Move away from the glass doors."
As the four frightened people huddled together in the cold room, there was a sudden roaring crack and the room went dark as the lights in the main store went out. The woman's screams hit their highest level almost deafening Dan. The kid's cries, the noise of the storm, and the woman's screams combined to produce a cacophony of sound that Dan would never forget. He hugged the kid and kept saying, "Everything is going to be okay."
To Dan, it seemed as if time had slowed down and everything happened in slow motion. A couple of the glass doors shattered and the goods on the shelves scattered on the floor. A gallon of milk fell to the floor and he watched as the white liquid slowly spilled out. He couldn't tell if one minute had passed or if it was closer to an hour before the roaring sound faded away. After looking around to make sure that no one was injured, Dan said, "I think it is safe to get out now."
The woman stopped screaming; a fact that seemed to slow the little kid's crying. The guy who had followed them into the cooler tried to open the door. It only moved a couple of inches before something blocked it. Looking over at Dan, he said, "The door is blocked."
"We'll go out through the glass doors at the front. Help me move the shelves," Dan said after taking stock of the situation. The metal shelves that held the diary products looked like they could be dismantled fairly easily.
Together the two men cleared an exit from the cooler and stepped out into the store. The woman and kid followed them out. Part of the ceiling had collapsed and water was pouring in from the rain. The woman stood just outside the cooler looking around at the destruction in shock. It was only at that minute that she realized that Dan had probably saved her life.
Dan and the other guy found the kid's mother on the floor. She had been cut up by some flying glass, but nothing seemed life threatening. Most of the cuts were along her back since she had curled into a ball when the tornado hit. Although she was hurt, she was overjoyed that her son had come through it without a scratch. Dan left her while the boy was describing his adventure in the walk-in cooler.
The store clerk wasn't as fortunate as the woman and had taken a lot of glass around the face. There was blood everywhere and he complained that his arm was broken. Dan found some paper towels and disposable diapers and used them to clean off some of the blood. It didn't look like there were any arteries or veins involved, but he didn't know enough about first aid to say much more than that. Cursing the public school system, he said, "That's another thing they didn't teach us."
The guy who had gone into the cooler with Dan was looking around the store in a state of shock. He said, "I was standing right where that ceiling came down. If I hadn't followed you in there, I would have been killed."
Shaking his head, Dan said, "I doubt you would have been killed, but you wouldn't have liked your medical bills."
The guy laughed out of nervousness and said, "That was a close call."
Having taken care of everyone in the store, Dan walked over to the cooler and grabbed a plastic bottle of root beer. He opened it and took a long sip. The guy asked, "Are you going to pay for that?"
"I doubt the cash register works," Dan said. He gestured to the rest of the store and said, "Nothing in here is going to get sold."
"Oh," the guy said. He picked up a soft drink and opened it.
Dan smiled and said, "Of course, we could get arrested for looting."
"Well, if we are going to share a cell we might as well exchange names. I'm Eric Williams."
"I'm Dan Parker," Dan said shaking Eric's hand.
"What now?"
Dan said, "I guess we ought to go outside and see what is going on out there."
After asking the woman he had dragged into the cooler to watch over the injured people in the building, the pair of men headed out the front door. It was still raining, but it wasn't too a deluge.
From where Dan stood it was easy to see that the damage was wide spread. A number of buildings across the street from the strip mall had been flattened. A power line was down, but he didn't see any sparks from it. Cars were strewn around the road almost randomly. Dan looked over at where he had parked his car. The sign from the dry cleaners had flattened it.
Shaking his head, he said, "The universe doesn't care."
"What was that?" Eric asked turning away from the scene of destruction to look at Dan.
"I said that the universe doesn't care. Things like this happen. However we may feel about it, the universe doesn't care. There's no apology for the damage done or the inconvenience to our lives. The universe just goes on as if nothing happened," Dan said.
"That's deep," Eric said.
"It is a fact of life," Dan said. It was the first up-close and personal experience he had with that fact. He shook his head and said, "It is also a fact that my car is totaled. Let's see if there is anyone who needs our help."
Dan and Eric went through the stores finding that everyone was doing okay. There were some broken windows, but the people appeared to have acted on his warning. Deciding that he couldn't postpone getting soaked any longer, Dan headed out to the street to check out the cars. Eric followed him without complaining about the rain. Much to their surprise, the majority of people appeared unharmed other than shock.
A handful of people were seriously injured. Upon encountering the first of the worst cases, Dan felt helpless. There was a man with his head at a weird angle. Dan and Eric had to leave him alone out of fear of causing greater damage. As he visited other cars with seriously injured people, Dan felt even more helpless. He had no clue what to do to help them.
When a police car finally made it to where they were standing, Dan went up to it to tell the officer inside what he had found. The policeman looked at him and asked, "Are you with the CERT team?"
"No," Dan answered wondering what a SERT team was. He said, "We've found a bunch of people in trouble."
"What did you find?" the policeman asked.
"There's a man in that car with a bad neck. It looks like it is broken. There's a woman over in that car over there who says that she can't feel her legs. The guy in the convenience store has a broken arm and is cut up with glass. There's a woman in there that is bleeding from cuts," Dan said. He turned to Eric and asked, "Did I miss anyone?"
"There is the guy in that van with a broken arm," Eric said.
The policeman said, "Okay. I'll call it in."
Dan looked around and noticed the car that had been turning into the parking lot. It had been smashed flat by the sign for the strip mall. He said, "I don't know, but there may be someone inside that car under the sign. I was supposed to meet a realtor here and I just realized that I haven't seen him."
The policeman looked at the car and shook his head. He'd have to go over there and check it out. "Thanks."
"I wanted to help those people, but I didn't know what to do," Dan said trying to explain why he hadn't helped them. He stared over at the car hoping that the man hadn't been inside it.
"Take a first aid course or join a CERT team," the policeman said while getting out of his car. Shaking his head, he said, "Just stay out of the way. You'll get hurt if you don't know what you're doing."
"Thanks," Dan said feeling pretty stupid.
He went over to the curb and sat down noticing only at that moment that the rain had stopped. Eric joined him. Reaching between his legs, Dan picked up some pebbles while he thought about the realtor. It was strange to think that he had talked to the man less than an hour earlier and now it appeared that he was dead. He didn't even know what the man looked like.
He tossed the pebbles into the street one at a time while thinking about his actions of the past hour. He didn't want to go over to the car to check on the driver. He was afraid of what he'd find. He knew that he wouldn't even know what to do while over there. That was the real unfair thing; he didn't know what to do to help anyone there.
Watching other people walking around in a daze, Eric said, "I feel stupid."
"Same here," Dan said.
"I don't know why you feel stupid. At least you did something. I stood around with my thumb up my ass," Eric said in disgust.
"That's odd. Every time I looked around, you were right there with me," Dan said. He watched a couple of guys get out of a pickup truck. They were wearing green hardhats, green vests, and carrying what looked like gym bags.
"I guess those guys with the green hardhats and shirts are the MURT folks," Eric said watching more people arriving on the scene. The policeman was directing them to the cars they had told him about.
"I think he called them SERT," Dan said watching the people start to render first aid.
"Oh, yeah," Eric said. He looked around and asked, "What do we do now?"
"I guess we do what the policeman said and we get out of the way. I'll try to call my parents and let them know that I'm okay," Dan said. He pulled out his cell phone and opened it. There weren't any bars showing. Shaking his head, he said, "No cell signal."
Eric looked around at the debris scattered around the parking lot. His car had come through unscathed, but it was blocked by a wrecked car. He was pleased that his car was okay. He loved his car a lot. He said, "I'd give you a ride, but there's no way I'm getting my car out of here until they clear things up a bit."
"Let's see if we can find a phone that works," Dan said.
It took Dan four hours to get home. He was exhausted. His exhaustion was nothing compared to the beating that his spirit had taken. One of his goals was to make a positive difference in his community. That disaster had been a perfect opportunity, but he had accomplished nothing. He wondered how he could graduate high school and not know how to treat basic injuries.
The insurance company didn't pay much on his car. It was an older model and the book value was a thousand dollars. Of course, it was impossible to find a car for a thousand dollars. He definitely needed a car. Without a car, he couldn't search for a location for his pizzeria.
Dan went to his account records and considered his financial situation. He had thirty three thousand dollars in savings. The insurance company was giving him eight hundred dollars. He was worried about his credit. He didn't know if getting a loan for a car would impact his ability to get a loan for his business.
Frustrated, Dan looked up at the ceiling and said, "There is so much that I don't know."
Unable to decide what to do, he left his bedroom and went to the living room. Dropping on the couch he decided that he would watch a little television. Turning on the channel, the very first thing he saw was a news story about NASCAR. He looked at the racecar and all of the advertisements on it. He said, "What I wouldn't give to have Parker's Perfect Pizza on one of those cars."
His dad entered the room and said, "You'll have to settle on having that on your car."
"I don't have a car," Dan said.
"Get one for your business," his father said.
"I thought about that, but I'm not sure what constitutes business use of a car," Dan said. One of the things that he had done was to look at the IRS website to determine if he would be better off buying a car for his business than buying a personal car.
"Well, every trip that you make associated with doing business counts. Pizza deliveries count. It seems to me like you are doing a lot of traveling around trying to get this business started," his father said.
"That's true," Dan said, "but I also do a lot of personal travel. I'm not sure that more than half of the miles that I put on it would be business related."
His father laughed and said, "Once you start selling pizzas you won't be doing much personal driving except to deliver pizzas."
Dan nodded his head as he considered it. He'd have to get commercial car insurance and he had no idea what entailed. He said, "I don't know. I'm going to have to think about it."
"You might ask Chuck Sanders up the street what he does about his car. He owns an antique shop and has a car with his store name on it," his dad suggested.
After debating the matter for several days, Dan decided that he needed a car and bought one. After having a mechanic check it out, he drove off the lot with a used station wagon. He had purchased it for eight thousand dollars. Despite having paid cash for it, he was left with enough money in his savings account to help get the business loan for the amount that he wanted.
As he was driving from the car dealership to his parent's house, he noticed a strip mall with a sign on one of the windows that it was for lease. He pulled into the parking lot and parked in front of the empty store. He went over and looked in the window. Spotting a foot measuring device on the floor, he assumed that it had once been a shoe store. It must have been a very large shoe store.
He went over to the sign and called the phone number on his telephone. The owner of the property walked out the front door of a business down the strip mall and came over to him even as they were talking on the phone. When he was within talking distance, he hung up the phone and kept talking.
Dan held up a hand and said, "I want to put in a pizza place with dining. I need to know how big it is, how much it costs, and the terms of the lease."
The man looked at him and said, "Well, it is twenty-five hundred square feet and it costs three thousand seven hundred dollars a month. You'll cover the utilities, trash, and build out. That would be a five year lease. I reserve the right to veto the build out if it impacts that structural integrity of the building."
If Dan understood real estate correctly, that meant the owner was responsible for the structural integrity of the building, taxes, and insurance. He shook his head and said, "The space is fine, but that's a little more than I want to spend. I'm trying to keep my rent to below that figure."
The owner said, "Come in and look around. I think I can talk you into changing your mind."
Shaking his head, Dan said, "I'll look, but I'm pretty stubborn."
Unlocking the door, the owner led Dan into the building. He said, "Considering the location, this rent is dirt cheap. There are eighteen thousand residences within four miles of here. There's a high school two blocks away and we all know that high school kids eat pizza. There's a retirement community a mile away and they often take excursions to places to eat. My mother is in there. Twenty two thousand cars drive past this mall on the main street. We have another ten thousand that drive past here on the cross street."
Dan was trying to keep up with the numbers. They sounded pretty good to him. He asked, "What's the traffic into the mall?"
Shaking his head, the owner answered, "Not as good as I would like it. We've got a dress shop that draws about thirty people a day. I don't know how they are going to stay in business. We've got a cell phone company and they draw less than that. The big draw is the video store. It pulls in a lot of people every day. They're doing real well.
"We had a Chinese place here that did real well when it opened and then the quality went down. They closed about six months ago. A wedding shop moved into that location. They don't have much volume, but it is a high dollar item. I own the tuxedo store. The volume fluctuates based on the time of year. It's real good during prom time and I expect to be around forever."
Dan walked to the back of the store where there were two bathrooms side by side. He opened the doors and looked in them. They were typical commercial bathrooms. There was no urinal in either one of them. There was a small store room across from the bathrooms. Dan looked around at the room and said, "I'm not sure."
"Of course you're not sure," the owner said. He walked around the room and said, "You can probably get seating for fifty to sixty people in here."
"Less than that," Dan said absently. He said, "My concept requires me to provide plenty of room for the customers. I want them to have a little space in which to bend the rules."
"What level of sales are you looking at?" the owner asked.
"I'm looking to start out at thirteen thousand a month and grow to seventeen thousand," Dan answered. Pacing the floor, he said, "I'm going to have to sell fifty large pizzas a day. That's a lot of pizza to push through my ovens. A bad day where I sell twenty pizzas could ruin the month. I'd have to sell twelve pizzas a day just to cover the rent."
"You should be able to do that if your pizzas are good," the owner answered. He was hoping to get another good draw business into the mall. When the cell phone company went out of business, he'd like to rent that at a better price. He'd love to get a vitamin shop to move in. Lots of people were interested in vitamins.
Dan paced around the room with a frown. He asked, "Is there any chance of outdoor dining?"
"Not here," the owner answered.
Dan looked up at the ceilings. He said, "Those are drop ceilings. How high could I raise them?"
"You can't. There's a four foot drop, but a large heating duct runs right down the center," the owner answered.
"Are there any problems with having it exposed?" Dan asked. He figured that he could mount the Nerf basketball hoops on it.
"I don't think so, but you never know with health codes," the owner answered.
Dan walked around for a minute and then asked, "Is there gas already run in?"
"Yes, there's a gas water heater for the bathroom sinks. They've got big pipes coming in, but small pipes to the actual water heater. You'll probably need to upgrade it for your business," the owner said.
"How many parking spaces are there?" Dan asked.
"We've got a hundred and fifty. Twenty five of them are along the side of this store. We always have parking space," the owner answered. When he had purchased the strip mall he had visions of getting a little photo booth out in the parking lot. Before he knew it, that kind of business seemed to disappear and those plans had come to nothing.
"Let's talk signage," Dan said.
"Sign can't be more than half the length of the store front and no higher than four foot," the owner said. Seeing the expression on Dan's face, he said, "Local code."
Dan said, "You're covering structure, taxes, and insurance. Is that right?"
"That's right," the owner answered.
"Assume for a minute that I'm stupid. Rent, utilities, and trash are the costs I'm aware of. What other costs can I expect?"
"CAM charges," the owner answered.
"What are those?"
"Common Area Maintenance charges," the owner answered.
"What do they run a month?"
"About two hundred," the owner said. "That is for the clean up of the parking lot, painting the lines once a year, and maintaining the garden at the front. The remainder of the money is put into an account to blacktop it every seven years."
Dan shook his head and said, "I'm going to need to consider it. It is a bit more than I had anticipated. I need to work through the numbers and see what it does to me."
The owner said, "I guarantee you that you'll make money out of here."
"Why?"
"There's not a pizza place within five miles of here. The nearest burger place is a mile down the road," the owner answered.
Dan nodded his head and said, "I'll need to think about it."
"It'll be available until I get a deposit to hold it," the owner said. He followed Dan out of the store and locked it up. Dan went over to his car and looked at the shop. He tried to visualize it with a Parker's Perfect Pizza sign out front.
He drove around the area checking out the houses. It looked like a better neighborhood than where he grew up. The man hadn't lied when he said that there was a school right down the street. There was an apartment complex with lots of young people living in it within a mile. The owner had been wrong on one point; there was a chain pizzeria a mile from where the store was located.
Dan went home and worked out the numbers. It was going to be tight; very tight at the prices the landlord had quoted. He looked at the numbers and shook his head. He didn't think it would work. It didn't matter that for the square footage involved, the price was cheap.
A little idea started eating its way into his brain. There were eighteen thousand households within four miles of the restaurant. He wondered how many pizzas the average family ate a year. If each household ate one pizza a year, then they were buying fifty pizzas a day. He decided that the matter required additional consideration.
It was two in the morning and Dan was getting ready for his break. It was a typical Sunday night and the bar crowd had been slow. Dan looked around the kitchen thinking it was going to be his last night there. He scraped the griddle to clean it.
Rob stopped by the kitchen and said, "Would you come with me to the dining room?"
"Okay," Dan said. He wiped down the griddle with a wet towel and checked the kitchen. Dan followed Rob out of the kitchen and into the dining room.
All of the staff was gathered there, even those who had the night off. The other two cooks, all of the waitress, the two busboys, and the two dishwashers were waiting for him. Rob said, "Tonight is your last night with us. We wanted to wish you good luck in opening your pizzeria."
"We're going to miss you," Kim said wiping tears from her eyes.
Sandy said, "You're really going to be missed."
"Thanks everyone," Dan said feeling his eyes getting a little moist.
Cathy said, "We got a cake."
Dan looked at the table and saw that there was a large cake from one of the grocery stores on a table. They had written across it, 'Parker's Perfect Pizza.' There was a pizza drawn on the cake. He looked at it and said, "That's great. I love it."
The party lasted for almost an hour. When it was over, Rob said, "Come on back to the office, Dan."
Dan followed Rob back to his office. After the two men had sat down, Dan said, "I'd like to thank you for all the opportunities to learn the business that you've provided for me. I've learned a lot working here."
"I wish I could have done more," Rob said. He had enjoyed having someone who took the opportunity to learn all that he could. It had been a pleasure teaching Dan different aspects of running a restaurant.
"You did a lot," Dan said.
Rob said, "I've got a little news that is for your ears only. I'm transferring to a new restaurant. Mr. Derkins wants to train new managers in the store. I'll only be here until the end of the year."
"Congratulations," Dan said with a large smile. He was pleased to hear that Rob was moving up.
"Thanks. I'm looking forward to the change," Rob said. He looked toward the door and said, "I hope that you stop by this place occasionally. I'm pretty sure that they'll enjoy seeing you from time to time."
"I will," Dan said.
Rob rose and offered his hand. He said, "Go out there. Say goodbye to everyone and then leave. I'm going to have a weepy staff tonight and I'm afraid that the longer you stay the worst it will be."
Nodding his head, Dan said, "I understand. Thank you for everything that you've done for me. I really appreciate it."
"I know," Rob said. He was going to miss having Dan around.
Thirty minutes later, Dan stood in the parking lot beside his car looking back at the restaurant. More than a year of his life had been spent working there. He had enjoyed almost every minute of it. He had learned a lot as a result of his experiences there. Wiping his eyes, he opened the car door and got inside.
Lazlo Zalezac