I, Edgar Allan Poe, Will Pick You Up from Olive Garden at 9:15 PM

By Joseph Moldover

So, you think me insane? You judge me to have taken leave of my senses? Mad I may seem, yes, this broken man raving before you, yet you should have seen me only three short nights ago, when I set forth to collect my sixteen-year-old daughter and her friends from Olive Garden. 

Oh, you would have marveled at the way I cleaned my 2011 Toyota Sienna before departing. You should have seen the diligence with which I threw away empty Diet Sprite cans and hid the particularly embarrassing Gas-X tablets, the clever manner in which I disposed of the wrapper from a cheeseburger I had for lunch the week before. 

Dear reader,  should you have chanced to glimpse me at 8:27 on Friday evening you would have seen a man in full possession of his faculties; a cautious man, yes, but a wise one, a man on his knees in the driveway using a steak knife and toothpaste to remove a SpongeBob sticker from the back of the center console lest the visage of that cheery character, placed there so many years ago by my daughter after a dental appointment (No! She had no cavities; I had done my work well) should embarrass her in front of friends and particularly Julian from Algebra 2, who I understood, from stray bits of overheard conversation, to be a baddie. 

I completed my efforts at 8:43 and found myself with three full minutes before having to depart. But here, gentle reader, I made my fatal mistake. For I, fool that I am, ate a Granny Smith apple. 

Fiber! Fiber, do you hear? The hated fruit contained just enough fiber that, as I drove, my stomach emitted a faint but audible gurgle. Horror stalked me then, sheer terror, for I knew full well, mark my words, that if my stomach growled whilst my daughter’s friends and Julian the baddie were in the car; nay, if my body made any noise whatsoever, then what followed would be adolescent embarrassment of such profound intensity, such biblical force, that all in its path would be obliterated. 

I arrived at Olive Garden at 9:07. No fool am I; I idled at the curb, yes, not directly by the exit but twenty yards hence, where I would be clearly visible but not too keenly waiting. I bided my time, playing This is Gracie Abrams from Spotify for I knew that my own music – ha! – my own music would bring down shame such as our Sienna had never known.  

I smiled cheerily as my daughter’s friends entered the minivan, for what had I to fear? There were no stickers, no wrappers, no over-the-counter gastrointestinal remedies. I bade them welcome and heartily urged them to adjust the rear air conditioning vents to their liking. Then I was silent, silent I tell you! I knew my role and it was to quietly, oh so quietly, drive fifteen minutes down Route 9 to the AMC. 

I jauntily tapped the steering wheel while they jousted over seats. I nonchalantly pulled out of the parking lot. I did not comment when Julian said the breadsticks had been “low-key fire.” I was a sphynx when my daughter’s best friend opined that the intended movie was rumored to be butt cheeks. But then, halted as a red light, I heard the dreaded noise.  

Pity me, reader, for at that very moment Gracie Abrams lapsed into a soft ballad, thus offering no cover. The blood drained from my face and my mouth went dry for my guts again stirred, the sound reverberating through my abdomen, a soft whine in the still air of the minivan.   

My neck began to sweat and dark spots appeared in the periphery of my vision, yet even then I still had hope. I vehemently began to opine on the merits of bottomless salad bowls and the joy of parmesan cheese, raising my voice and gesticulating with one hand. On and on I went, faster and faster, the assembled teenagers listening politely, acting as though they had not detected any untoward sound. The evil Julian even spoke up to praise the tiramisu!  They must have heard, yet they said nothing. They mocked me with silence, their smiles reflected in the rearview mirror. 

Terrible, most terrible, and more terrible still: the sound grew and grew until it filled the vehicle, reverberating off the dash. It was a rumble like thunder, dull and ongoing, now low and then swelling to majestic crescendo. How could they not hear it? They did! They must! It rose until it filled my head, crowding out all thought. And still, still, they chatted amiably about the most trivial of matters as though nothing whatsoever were ill or out of joint.

I drove into the AMC lot and parked by the entrance. My stomach churned louder, ever louder, reverberating in the suburban night until lo, I could bear their dissembling no longer.  I gnashed my teeth and pounded my fists upon the wheel. “Fiends!” I shrieked. “Villains! I know you hear it, hear the rumble of my bowels, fresh with juicy produce, quaking in the dark. Taunt me no more! I confess, it is I! I ate the apple. Listen: it is the gurgling of my hideous colon!”