She was crying into the phone. I hated it when she cried.
“Don’t you care? Don’t you care at all?”
“What do you want me to say?” I asked. “You want me to rush over and comfort you? Tell you everything’s alright? What?”
“Should I go to the doctor?”
“What’re you asking me for?”
“I’m BLEEDING,” she carried on. “Don’t you care…”
“I don’t have time for this,” I said. “You called at a bad time. I have customers here.”
“You… told… me… you… loved… me…” she was crying so hard she sounded like she had the hiccups. I looked up. The store was empty. Not a customer in sight. I looked out the large windows facing the parking lot. Not a single car. I looked at the clock. I had another five hours of the night shift. If I wasn’t careful, she’d come to the store and do her crying jag there.
“Yeah. And YOU neglected to mention that your husband’s a fucking psycho.”
That made her cry even more. It was giving me a headache, and I was tired of talking to her. I had broken it off with her as soon as I noticed this troll looking guy following me everywhere. He was outside my apartment. He sat in the parking lot at work. He followed me to the bar. He followed me to the goddamn grocery store. When I finally got up the nerve to ask him what his problem was, he told me his name was Craig and that he was Cindy’s husband. When I told him he was full of shit, he showed me a wedding picture. Then he showed me a 9 millimeter and told me he’d empty it in my face if I ever talked to Cindy again. Nice guy, right? Though I guess I couldn’t blame him. I’d never had a girlfriend long enough for one to cheat on me; but I imagine I’d be pretty pissed off.
I hadn’t heard from her in a month, and then she called me at work to tell me she was pregnant. She called me there because she knew I wouldn’t answer her calls at home. “Congratulations,” I told her. “Does your husband know?”
She tried to tell me he was jealous and upset. He didn’t think the baby was his and all he did was yell and scream at her, and threaten to hit her so she’d lose the baby. When I reminded her that he was clearly justified, all that did was upset her. She told me she was sure it wasn’t his baby, too. Then she told me it was mine.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “We always used a rubber. I’m careful about that shit.” And that was the truth. I WAS always careful. I’d never had a scare before; but I learned from the mistakes of others. I used to know this guy in high school – I think his name was Bernie or Buddy or Brian – and he got this girl pregnant. Well, her parents were religious freaks and insisted he marry the chick and “do the right thing.” His parents told him if he didn’t make it right that they were going to cut him off – and they were pretty well off. He was planning on going to medical school, and he didn’t want to have all those loans hanging over his head. So he married the girl. They weren’t even out of HIGH SCHOOL. I took biology with her and all she did was sit in the front and show baby pictures to all the other girls in class. The teachers were scared shitless that there was going to be a baby epidemic. So I always used a rubber – except for this one time and that girl was on the pill, anyway.
“Condoms break, you know,” Cindy was saying. “Nothing is one hundred percent effective…”
“Save the public service message,” I told her, “and talk to your husband. Or any of the other guys you’ve been with.”
I thought that would be the end of it. But of course, it wasn’t. She was calling me all the time – always at work, where I wouldn’t have the caller ID – and telling how horrible it was at home.
“Craig’s always drunk,” she’d say. “He’s mean. He’s hit me a couple of times, and he keeps threatening to punch me in the stomach.”
“So leave him.”
“Can I come stay with you?”
“NO.”
Maybe I should’ve felt bad. Maybe I should’ve offered to let her stay with me until she could get settled in her own place; but I knew how that would turn out. She’d move in and never leave. The psycho would camp out in front of my place. She’d cry a lot. Then there was the whole baby thing to consider. It played out in my mind like a whole lot of hassle and drama.
On this particular night, she called to tell me he’d gone through with his threat to hit her in the stomach and it had caused her to bleed.
“Call 911,” I said. “Call an ambulance. Call the cops.”
“What should I DO?” she wailed.
I looked up and was relieved to see a customer stroll into the store. “Listen,” I said. “I’ve got a customer. I’m at WORK, you know.”
“I’m sorry,” she sniffed. “I know you’re at work. I just don’t know what to do…”
“Yeah you do. Hang up and call the cops. That’s who you’re supposed to call when your husband is abusing you.” I hung up before she could get out another sentence.
Most of the time I hated it when my shift was busy; people were so damned impatient when they had some place to be. It didn’t matter that I was the only clerk and there was only one register. Customers came in waves. It was never just a steady trickle. No, they came one right after another for like an hour, maybe even two. Then nothing. When the store was empty I could read or get started on my end of the shift clean-up. Mostly I read, or snuck behind the cooler and nabbed a beer or something to drink. The gig was a monkey job – it didn’t take any great intelligence to do it – and I had to find some way to while away the time. One of the things Cindy always said she liked about me was that I was smart, but I didn’t act like it. She’d point to whatever book I was reading to prove her point; though when it came to reading I was fairly indiscriminate. I bought books at this used book store on my way to work: tossed away paperbacks, four for a buck kind of stuff. I avoided those god awful romances and the Tom Clancy crap – but I read just about anything else. Cindy started bringing me books, too. Nicer, hardbound books that I wasn’t comfortable lugging around. She said it was nice to talk to somebody literate. The husband, apparently wasn’t much of a reader. He considered himself something of an art and social critic, and he despised everything that had been written, painted, or made since the thirteenth century. I asked her once if it ever occurred to him that in the thirteenth century, he wouldn’t have even known how to read. She laughed and kissed me.
The customer who had been my excuse to get off the phone took his time strolling around the store. The place wasn’t that big, and everything was pretty easy to find. They were building a newer, bigger one down the street – construction was always ‘ongoing’ – but for now, everything was tightly packed and easy for the eye to see. He wandered down the snack isle and up the grocery isle. For a second he stopped in front of the Spam and Chef Boyardee, and I thought maybe he was going to buy something. Sometimes people just wandered in and wandered out without buying anything ; and I wouldn’t have cared, except that meant I had to look like a dumbass and stand at the register, waiting for them to buy something. I’d been called out by my manager twice because of that. I stood there, looking attentive and ready to ring him up, get him lottery tickets, get him a pack of smokes, or a porn magazine; he got to the end of the grocery isle, facing me. He smiled at me and turned to walk down the automotive isle. He stopped briefly in front of the fix-a-flat, then moved on.
Mother fucker. Oh well. I stood there on my little rubber mat that was supposed to keep my feet and back from hurting (it didn’t) and kept my prepared stance. That was what the manager, Joyce, called it. A prepared stance. I never bothered to ask her where she heard it or what it was supposed to be. I liked Joyce most of the time. She was short, and little on the plump side. Attractive for a woman in her early 40’s with a big smile and a rack to match. She was all business when it came to work, but I knew she spent her weekends and off time drinking beer and smoking weed. She’d invited me to a field party once, but I had to meet Cindy that night. Sometimes I still kicked myself for not going to the party instead.
I was thinking about how I was going to buy some new shoes with my next check, when the phone rang. I held my breath in for a second. Let it be a wrong number, I thought. I answered the phone using the professional air Joyce wanted when we answered the phone.
“Do you know who this is, you piece of shit?”
Fuck me. “The Tooth Fairy?”
“You think you’re funny, asshole?”
“I have my moments.”
“I told you what would happen if I caught you talking to my wife again, didn’t I?”
The barrel of the 9 millimeter flashed briefly in my mind. “Does this mean we’re not friends anymore, Craig?”
“You better watch it, fuckhead.”
“What do you want?” I asked. “I’m at work. Maybe you’re familiar with the concept?”
“Funny. You’re a funny guy. Maybe you should make a joke about how you fucked my wife.”
“I told you. We’re just FRIENDS.” That was exactly what I told him, too. They were married, true. But she had come on to me. I didn’t feel like I owed him anything – especially the satisfaction of being right. “You need to calm down.”
“Yeah?” he sneered. “Then how come you were on the phone with her tonight?”
“Look,” I said, keeping an eye on my strolling potential customer, who had made the loop around the store and was making his way down the drink and refrigerated isle. “I didn’t call her. She called me. If you don’t want your wife to talk to me, maybe you should monitor her phone calls a little more closely. If that’s even possible.”
“DON’T YOU FUCKING GIVE ME THAT. DON’T YOU FUCKING LIE TO ME, EITHER. MAYBE YOU’D LIKE IT IF I CAME DOWN TO THAT SHITTY LITTLE CONVENIENCE STORE AND BEAT THE TRUTH OUT OF YOU? HOW’D YOU LIKE THAT?”
“Look,” I said. “If you want to come down here, that’s fine. I’ve got nothing to say and nothing to hide.”
“YEAH? MAYBE I’LL COME DOWN THERE AND POUND YOUR EMPTY FUCKING SKULL IN WITH A BASEBALL BAT. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT?”
I thought it was getting old. I didn’t want him to come down to the store, and I wasn’t all that sure I could take him. I felt my hands shaking and my heart beating faster. But I sure as shit wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that. “Look. If you want to come down here and start something, then get in your car and come down here you psycho son of a bitch.” I was raising my voice. The phantom customer looked up from what appeared to be the potato chip section. “You’re just a fucking pussy, anyway. Got to get feel like a man by beating the shit out of your wife. Maybe if you weren’t such an abusive asshole with a small dick, your wife wouldn’t need to make friends with other people.”
“I CAN SMELL YOU ON HER! I CAN’T KISS HER ANYMORE BECAUSE I TASTE YOU IN HER MOUTH!”
“If you taste balls,” I told him, “brush your teeth more often.”
“LISTEN…”
“No,” I said. “YOU listen. If you’re going to come down here then get off the goddamn phone and come down here. I have work to do.” I hung up. When I looked up the phantom customer was standing in front of me. He’d set a small bag of pretzels and a Diet Pepsi on the counter. I was still shaking. I smiled and tried to compose myself. Then I rang up his stuff.
“Is there anything else you need?” I asked. “Lottery tickets?”
He shook his head. “No thanks.” He paid with cash. I gave him his change. When he picked up his purchases, he wrinkled his brow at me and said “Good luck.”
“Have a good night, sir.” He walked out, got into an old model Lexus, and drove off.
The rest of the night was uneventful. Craig never showed up. Cindy never called back. Towards the end of my shift, Joyce walked in.
“Hey, Joyce. What’s up? You taking the next shift or something?”
“No,” she said. “We need to talk.”
“About?”
“I need to let you go.”
“Why?”
“Because all you do is screw around. I’ve got you on tape reading, sneaking into the back to steal beer, and talking on the phone. This is a place of BUSINESS, you know. If you want to talk on the phone, do it on your own time.”
“I can’t help it if the phone rings,” I said. “What do you want me to do? Not pick it up?”
“I want you to act like a professional and not scream cuss words into the phone. It scares the customers.”
“What customers? It’s been dead all night.”
She shook her head. “Do you remember a guy coming in earlier tonight?”
What? I thought. Did he call to complain or something? “There was one guy,” I answered. “He bought some pretzels and a pop; but that was after he strolled around the store for twenty minutes scratching his ass.”
“That was the owner,” she said. “He likes to check up on his stores. When he left here, the first thing he did was call me. Woke me up to tell me that he heard you screaming at somebody over the phone, threatening them.”
“I wasn’t,” I defended. “You see, there’s this guy..”
“I don’t care,” Joyce said, folding her arms around her enormous tits. “You’re also a thief. You have to go.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’m too smart for this job, anyway.” I grabbed my stuff, walked into the back, and clocked out. Joyce followed me – I guess to make sure I didn’t take anything.
“You’re not going to finish your shift?”
You’ve got to be kidding me. “I’m going to get drunk and go to sleep,” I said. “You work here. You finish the goddamn shift.” When I walked out of the store, the sun was coming up. I looked around. The only cars in the parking lot were my piece of crap Honda and Joyce’s shiny Ford F-150. I walked across the parking lot, keeping an out for Craig. He was nowhere to be found. Then I got in my car and left.
