Chapter 1.3 Something Smells Fishy, but it’s Not Doug’s

Ronnie

My phone buzzes. It is only 12:30 in the afternoon, but my heart leaps through my chestat any chance it may be Landon.

Hate to do this, it reads, but I have to cancel our date tonight.

My disappointment is unfathomable, but I shouldn’t be concerned. I just met this boy last night….so why am I clinging to him already? Was I imagining the connection we have?

A moment later another message comes through, Rain check, Ron?

Of course, loser ;) I reply.

Talk to you later, he sends back.

Peyton is going out of town with her family for the weekend, and her parents forbid me from staying in their house alone. Not because they don’t trust me and think I’ll throw some rager while they’re gone, but they don’t live in the safest neighborhood. I once lived right next door, so I would know. Not like I couldn’t fend off the creeps, but I’m certainly not in the mood for it.

So, l am blessed with the company of my sister this weekend. Trust me, I didn’t go crawling back to her. Sarah kept calling every second, then it dwindled down to a few times a week. Finally, after a week, she got the picture. But then- there were the texts. Hundreds of them.

How much the cable bill, normally? How do I write out this bill? Where did all of the money go? Are you getting my texts? Will you please come home and help me? PLEEEAAASSSEEE.

Sarah thought I caved when I stomped through the house a few hours ago, but in reality I had no other place to go. Dad has been AWOL for two weeks straight, so I’m out of options.

I decide, or rather force myself to get some homework done. It’s Friday night, but Peyton is out of town with her family. Lucky, she gets to walk through the city lights, and I get to cross my kitchen to the microwave. I’ll admit, mac and cheese has never smelled better than it has tonight though. I wonder when my Sarah will get home- it’s already 8:30. She should have been here two hours ago with dinner! What else is new? My stomach rumbles as the cheesy sauce pops and crackles.

I hear the front door swing open as the microwave signals that my cuisine is ready. Peyton comes rushing in with her usual apologies as to why she is late.

“Oh, God. Sorry, Ron. I was planning on ordering pizza, but I got held up with another delivery.”

“Yeah, sure,” I produce my typical response.

Peyton usually contributes to bills as little as she can, and lately it’s been next to nothing. My gut tells me she’s not even employed.

“Anyway,” I turn to my mac and cheese and stab an elbow, “I think Sabrina might need some backup at work. I’m too mentally exhausted to finish this algebra, so I mine as well go make some cash for myself instead.”

In reality, this is far from the truth. Doug’s Delight Supermarket barely survives on the weekends, and on Friday nights, were deader than the cemetery three blocks over. In all honesty, I need some adolescent company. Typically, I’d hang out with Peyton and binge watch terrible movies. Sabrina, my coworker, is my only option left on this pathetic Friday night of fun.

“Alright,” Sarah squeezes my shoulder as I make my way to the stairs, “there’ll be pizza here when you get back!”

“I’m sure!” I shout back sarcastically.

I throw on my work uniform and call Sabrina.

“Need some company?”

Before I can get out the last word, Sabrina is shouting into the phone.

“Why do I even work here, Ronnie? I mean, this place is a total dump. No one but the homeless have meandered their asses into the store tonight, the smell in the breakroom is getting worse, if that’s even possible, and I’m bored. As. Hell.”

“Okay, okay,” I breathe out in a laugh, “I’m on my way.”

“Get your sorry ass over here before I strangle Doug. He put me on for tonight because Aurora quit.”

“Bye, Sabrina.”

“Bye, bitch.”

This has become a ritual for Sabrina and myself. If I have nothing going on Friday night, I drive down to Doug’s and we eat Fat Cakes and drink Coke and gorge on the about-to-expire poisons of aisle two. It happens about once a month, and I savor every bit of it. Sabrina is one of those people you can talk with about anything, and it allows me to escape my monotonous life for a fleeting moment.

I pull into the desolate parking lot, noticing a single car in the only handicapped marked spot we offer.

Doug’s lights buzz and blink a few times, welcoming me home.

“Hey, love,” Sabrina sings as I come in, “I’ve had to piss for an hour, can you ring out the old geezer over there?”

She points to an elderly lady who is shaking her cane at Sabrina’s unfiltered mouth.

“Sorry, ma’am,” I mumble.

Sabrina flashes me a smile and bolts to the unladylike ladies room. It reeks like the sewers in there.

“How are you today?”

The wrinkled old lady smiles up at me and flashes her gums. I scan a jumbo package of Depends, a frozen Cornish Hen, and two cans of no-salt-added tomato sauce through my line. She struggles to swipe her EBT card through the machine.

It takes a moment for my question to register in her mind, “Oh, I’m just fine, dear,” she coos on her forth try.

“Here- let me,” I offer patiently.

Finally, I whisk the old lady away. There is a line now. A line on a Friday! Grumbles of angry adults travel through the crowd, probably rushing home to prepare for a night of clubbing or pop corn for a movie night or have a go at it once they tuck the munchkins in. I wonder which of these miscellaneous tasks weigh out more importantly than the other. What is the significance of each one of these people’s lives? What is the significance of my life? What am I even doing- scanning broccoli and baby food and cavity-fighting toothpaste through this line?

I am lost in my own head as I ring out the remaining customers, satisfied that they were checked out so quickly. I have always been efficient. One thing I don’t like is bullshit, so I don’t give others bullshit. I scan their items and take their money fast, because I don’t want to hold people up. I don’t want to interfere with other’s lives. ‘I’m here to serve the public, to make their life’s easier,’ at least that’s what my manager, Doug, tells me.

What about my life? It’s what I would call moderate- I scan items, I go to school, I skip school, my parents feed me (most of the time), and I drive my car to and fro. Then why is it that I feel like something is missing? Why is it that I feel like I am insignificant?

Perhaps, I am.

A heavy-set, greasy-haired woman struts up to my register. Sabrina has been on her bathroom break for fifteen minutes. Either she fell in a sewer, or she’s saving herself from these customers tonight.

The woman swipes up a jar of pickles and pops off the lid, chomping down on the acidic once-cucumber, chewing loudly with her mouth agape. She insists on taste testing half of the damn dills. I clearly and politely tell her, “That is against store policy, ma’am.” She accidentally spills the contents of the jar that remain. Whoops.

“Sorry, doll face,” she fusses in a fake voice.

I simmer with anger and reach a rolling boiling by the time she licks her pinky finger.

“Those aren’t kosher,” she spits at me, still smacking away at her fingers, “I don’t want ‘em.”

I add a few extra bucks to the customer’s bill for inconvenience. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. To my relief, she waddles off, lost without those kosher dills.

Sabrina returns from her break with Fat-Cakes and Pepsi.

“You fall down the rabbit hole back there and think Pepsi is acceptable? You are cruel.”

“Suck it up, Ronnie.”

I sigh as she tosses me the bottle of liquid sugar and diabetes in a bag.

“We’re not having the Pepsi-Coke debate. I’ve dealt with too many homeless people for one night as it is. One man kept begging me for change when I haven’t even cashed my paycheck from yesterday. I had a dime. He had a switchblade.”

“Damn,” I twist open my soda and lean against my register station, “tough crowd. Weapons? We’ve never had to deal with knives before. That’s dangerous territory.”

“We need to get out of this place before one of us a) gets shot, stabbed or mutilated by one of these crazies, b) get hit on by Crazy Harold, or c) contract an incurable STD.”

I chortle until soda drips down my nose. I’m sleep deprived and I need a life.

“Don’t go looney on me yet, girl. The night’s just beginning.”

We annihilate a handful of Fat-Cakes and get hyped up on sugar, while Doug sits in his office mastering level fifty-three of Candy Crush. I hear the “level-up” feature ping about a dozen times. It’s almost comforting, I’ve become so used to it this past year.

“Where’s Peyton on this lovely Friday night?”

“Out of town. She went down to the city with her family.”

“Lucky her,” Sabrina drawls.

“I know right? I want to travel, but my parents are never around. I could always take off by myself, but what fun is that? Peyton is always busy with someone or something, the social butterfly of her school. I feel like I’m trapped in this town.”

“I hear ya, girl. Let’s make a pact were gonna become something bigger than the sad scum rot around here?”

“Cheers to that,” we clank our soda bottles.

I decide to keep Landon to myself. Who knows if anything will materialize out of our unusual meeting? I hope he decides to keep his word on the raincheck, but I have my doubts. Boys are boys.

Sabrina and I discuss the latest episode of Pretty Little Liars with the occasional customer wandering in or out. A little boy, on a manhunt for king-sized chocolate bars. A middle aged man buying a case of Genny Light. A tired mother buying late-night snacks for her kids.

Sabrina and I have gossiped for hours, and the night is finally coming to an end. It’s closing time. I hang up my apron and clock out at 10:45, as my manager yells over his shoulder, “Clean up and lock up, Veronica! Oh, and please do me a favor and make sure Elena doesn’t eat any more of the Fat-Cakes!”

Elena is the assistant manager of Doug’s Delight Supermarket. Elena, I shit you not, is the size of a school bus. Let me explain- if you flipped a school bus over and stood it up vertically, as in up and down orientation, you couldn’t spot the difference between Elena and that damn bus. Her skin-tight bun only helps to emphasize her triple-decker-chin. Every night, Doug warns me to hide the Fat-Cakes, but Elena finds a way to make a secret stash. She eats a dozen every night. At least Sabrina and I make an effort to dispose of the evidence.

“See you tomorrow, girl?”

Sabrina’s half way out the door, a smile plastered to her smug face.

“See you, sunshine!” I shout.

Sabrina vanishes into the blanket of darkness as I shut the door. I watch her headlights bounce out of the parking lot.

Elena and I are in charge of running the deposit to the bank every night- rain or snow, tornado or twister, end of the shift or end of the world. Doug is too much of a lazy son of bitch to run the money over himself, which is store policy, so he sticks the job with us. I wonder if he feels empty at the end of day- life-long bachelor, annoying talker, and head of a small town, barely-standing supermarket.

I approach the front door to lock up while Elena is counting the safe, and there is a man on his way in. He’s brooding and tall and looks determined. A hood covers most of his face.

I crack open the door a few inches and say, “Sir, I’m sorry, but we close at 10:30 on Tuesdays.”

He smiles, and walks up to me anyway. I notice the whole plaza parking lot is empty. Bare, in fact. Fancher’s must have gone out of business.

“Well,” he leans against the door frame, and I casually let the door swing shut an inch or so, “I only came in for some cash, anyway.”

“We don’t have an ATM,” I shut the door completely, “but there’s one just up the street,” I talk through the glass. The man nods and walks off.

I turn the lock and ask Elena how she’s doing.

“We didn’t make day,” Elena sighs, the same sigh I have heard for the past year, “but at least we made it past eight-hundred.”

I am about to double-check Elena’s count, when the sound of shattered glass cuts through the office.

“What the hell?” I mutter.

I open the office door and there is the strange man from a moment ago. He stands among the twinkling shards, grinning with a crazed look on his face. It almost appears as though there are tears in his eyes. The door is wide open, a new gaping hole formed next to the lock, and blood drips onto the floor from the pyscho’s elbow.

Then he pulls a gun from under his tattered black hoodie, and teeters over to me. I am frozen in place, and the only phone I have access to is in the office. Elena remains by the office door, unsure of what to do. I swear I see crumbs outlining her lips, but that could just be the adrenaline causing me to hallucinate.

The robber approaches me slowly but surely. He raises the gun to my forehead. The cold metal prods at my face.

“Give me what I want,” he growls.

“I have to scan an item to open my drawer,” I say steadily.

I refuse to let this freak smell my fear, because I know he’ll prey on it. I breathe in deeply and exhale raggedly.

“Do it slowly, little punk. No funny business.”

He retracts his gun, but points it over to my register. As soon as I saw the shattered glass, I knew I would need a weapon. Ironically, there is glass cleaner underneath register three.

As I descend to the register as slowly as my body is willing to, I hear Elena’s heavy footsteps in the office. Our cell phones are stored away in our lockers (strict store policy), but I hear the store phone being picked up.

I spring ten feet in the air when the gun goes off. I don’t realize my eyes are closed until I am forced to open them, and I am relieved when I see a bullet hole in the ceiling.

“Don’t even try it, bitch. Cops show up and the both of you are dead.”

Elena must faint, because I hear her body make contact with the carpet.

Somehow, I manage to type ‘1.00’ when I reach the keyboard, because I- I admit I am scared shitless. My brain locks up after that.

“Hurry it up kid, before I blast your brains out your ass!”

”I can’t think under pressure!” I lie.

He presses the gun into my skull and asks, “Does this help, you little shit?”

A little noise- even a mouse farting would do right now! I shout in my head.

On cue, I hear Elena attempting to stealthily open the office door.

Just as I’m about to give up, Elena sneezes and Fat-Cakes fly out of her apron, while managing to knock out the front window display.

I manage to quickly grab the bottle under the register while finishing the transaction.

“Halleujah! I was beginning to think I’d really have to kill you, you bitch. You just knocked yourself out!”

The most insane thing is, this guy laughs whole-heartedly at his own words. I use this distraction to my advantage.

My finger trembles on my own trigger, then I spray chemicals into the crazy man’s eyes before he has time to process what I’m doing.

He writhes in pain and digs the palms of his hands into his eyes.

“Don’t you love the smell of an ocean breeze?”

Since he’s momentarily blinded, the man has dropped the money. Dollar bills and coins are now scattered under our feet.

I bring my knee up to his groin and kick him the balls with such force, he whimpers like a baby.

“I hope you can have kids again, someday,” I mock.

“Elena? It’s okay to come out now, but bring me some rope or ties.”

Timidly, she crawls out from behind the “item of the week” sign, then rifles through a basket nearby. She hands me some industrial-size zip-ties.

“That’s the- the best we’ve got,” her voice is shaky.

“Watch him,” I command a terrified Elena.

She visibly shakes, but the douchebag isn’t escaping on my watch. He isn’t going anywhere but behind bars. The culprit is currently doubled over in pain, rolling around on the floor, holding onto his junk.

I run into the office and grab a heavy chair, and pull it right up to the perps face. He remains in immense pain, but I kick him in the stomach for good measure. I wince at myself for being so cruel, but he could have killed two innocent people tonight. Four, if Doug and Sabrina hadn’t left early.

“Please,” he murmurs pathetically, begging, “please let me go. I wasn’t going to- I wasn’t actually going to shoot you.”

“Sure,” I laugh, acid leaking into my voice, “that’s what they all say.”

I drag the man’s body into an upright position, pinning him down with a zip-tie to each arm. He no longer struggles. One, due to pain. Two, he spots the gun stuffed under my waistband. I won’t hesitate.

“Another tie?” I request from Elena, who remains cowering in the corner.

Her hand misses mine several times, but eventually I yank the tie from between Elena’s fingers. I begin with the man’s ankles, and he whines again as a tear rolls down his cheek.

I start to feel some remorse, but he could have killed me for God’s sake! What am I supposed to do?

“I have three kids,” he whispers, shaking his head, “and those idiots promised me thousands. I’ve been living on food stamps for years now, and I’m too much of a dumbass to do college. My wife- she’s some crazy, anorexic broad who needs help. I can’t afford her or the kids…”

“You think robbing us isn’t the least bit crazy?” I question him.

As lunatic as it sounds, he smiles up at me, boring into my eyes.

“Trying to rob you? I don’t think anyone could get past a tyrant like you. You’re crazier than my wife!”

A laugh escapes my throat, and I can see through the corner of my eye, it sends more tremors through Elena. She finally snaps out of shock and rushes to the office. I can hear the out-of-time dings being dialed- she’s calling the cops.

I don’t know how or why, but something tells me this guy is genuine. He’s telling me the truth. I need to know what the reason for this madness is. He’s risked his life, his dignity, his children- what would possess a man to go to such extreme measures?

“Why?” I ask, “Why would you be willing to waltz in here with a gun and get arrested?”

The man gives me a sad look and ponders my question.

“They make you do crazy things, girl,” he says it almost like a warning, “things you never thought you’d have the nerve to do.”

It is then that I hear the sirens, and I have to fight the urge to cut this man loose sitting before me.

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“The Rebels,” he almost snarls.

Although I don’t know who the “Rebels” are, the name sends a shiver down my spine. Even though this man agreed to do their dirty work, he still holds an intense hatred toward them. I can see the fire burning behind his eyes.

“What’s your name?” I ask as the sirens are getting closer.

“Darrell,” he mumbles.

“Well, Darrell,” I pat the man’s hand, “today’s your lucky day.”

Elena gasps and shakes her head, and it threatens to snap off.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. I’m not setting him free, you spaz.”

I turn back to Darrell, and I can see the eyes of an average man staring back at me. The eyes of a human who’s struggled, who’s dealt with enough bullshit for a lifetime, who deserves a chance.

He watches me in utter shock as I pull the gun from my waistband, and I slide it under the soda cooler.

“All you do is tell them you threatened to rob our store, you understand me? No weapon involved. It’s all a ‘misunderstanding.’”

He nods numbly.

“This is your first offense right?” he nods again as I go on, “Then you’ll get off easy. With a big, fat warning and questioning. Just give them a sob story.”

“Thank you, ma’am. God, bless you,” he stares up at the ceiling with true appreciation, and maybe a little bit of faith.

The sirens approach the parking lot. I watch through the window as a cop jumps out of his car in the procedural stance, hanging low. He spots us and picks up the pace.

“Just promise me one thing?”

“Of course- anything,” Darrell pledges.

“Don’t let me catch you involved in a stunt like this ever again. I’ll pull the trigger next time.”

Oddly enough, we smile at each other, and then the police flood the meat market.