by D. M. Guay
We shook on it, then he ushered me and my magically refurbed Huffy to the door. When I stepped back out into the store, the linoleum was sparkling and clean. No spilled Inferno slushy. No guts. No bashed in tiles from barbed tentacles. The chip rack was where it belonged, stocked, not a single bag out of place. DeeDee sat on her wooden stool outside of the beer cave, looking bored, picking at her black fingernails like it was any old normal night. Like nothing had happened. Because nothing had happened. Boy. Big Dan was really gonna get an earful about that weed. Then again, now that I had a job, I could afford to buy my own instead of smoking whatever sketchball stems and seeds he rummaged up.
Mr. Impossibly Handsome ushered me to the front door and handed me a fresh new Colossal Super Slurp cup filled with Inferno. I noticed he'd installed a cup holder on my bike. Yes!
“Welcome to the team, young Mr. Wallace,” he said. “I only ask that you obey two rules above all: Do not let anyone else touch or wear your name tag. Also, the employee manual in your welcome pack is for authorized eyes only, do you understand? No unauthorized person can touch or see either of those items. Break those rules, and you'll be terminated immediately.”
“Um, okay?” He hadn't handed me any welcome pack or name tags, so no problem.
“Now. Be here one hour and thirty minutes before sunset tomorrow. Ricky, the day manager, will begin your training. He prefers to leave before sundown, so don't be late,” he said. “Oh dear, pardon my manners. My name is Asmodius Faust. I am the keeper of this gate, commander of legions, and your boss. I will appear when you truly need me, but bear in mind I am only available after dark.”
He waved his hand in front of me like he was a cheap Vegas hypnotist. “Now be on your way. No Xbox tonight. Sleep long and well, for you'll need your wits about you tomorrow. You have much to learn.”
Next thing I knew, I was standing outside in the parking lot alone beneath the flickering neon 24/7 Dairy Mart sign, Inferno in hand. I felt something thick and papery under my T-shirt. I reached in and pulled out a manila envelope with “Welcome, Lloyd Lamb Wallace.” typed neatly in bold Gothic font on the front. I opened it up. Inside was a plastic name badge reading “Hello, my name is Lloyd” and an old, red leather-bound book. I fished out the name tag. My fingers tingled. The neon sign above me popped and hissed. I looked up. The curlicue neon letters no longer spelled out 24/7 Dairy Mart in cheerful blue, yellow and pink. The letters glowed blood red. They now read 24/7 Demon Mart.
Chapter 3
I slept like a dead man. Or, how I guessed a dead man would sleep, given I had no personal experience. A blinding beam of sunlight cut around the edges of my bedroom curtains, searing my eyeballs. Man, brutal. The red letters on my alarm clock read 4:48.
My teeth felt like they were wearing a wool sweater, thanks to the hardened coating of slushy sugar all over them. I could taste the Inferno remnants in my mouth. Note to self: Make more effort to brush teeth before passing out cold. Sweater teeth = super gross.
Last night was a blur. I vaguely remember fishing around the bottom of the cup for the last bit of slushy, then waking up. That was it. The sun lit up a slice of fat envelope on top of the clean-but-yet-to-be-put-away clothes Mom had left on my dresser. My new employee welcome pack. Oh shit. Cold fingers of dread tickled me all over. Now I remember. I got a job. I had to go to work. I had to get on a schedule. I actually had somewhere to be—on time. Sucks so hard. Six months of unemployed freedom, gone just like that. Poof.
My mind reeled. What time did that Faust guy say I had to be there? Oh yeah. He hadn't given me a time. He said an hour and a half before sundown, like I was supposed to magically know when that was. Ugh. It was already too much work just to figure out what time to show up. I fumbled around my bedside table until I found my phone, and as soon as the screen didn't light up, I remembered I hadn't paid the bill, the battery had gone dead and I didn't have the cash to replace it, and the screen was a giant spiderweb of cracks anyway. The stupid thing was as useful as a brick. I threw it onto a pile of dirty laundry on the floor.
Meh, I've got time for a nap. I rolled over and closed my eyes. But my mind zoomed straight to that mopping, talking roach and that beady yellow eyeball surrounded by tentacles. I sat straight up. That shit still seemed SO real. You and your insane-o-weed, Big Dan. Jesus! So much for that nap. I stumbled over to my desk and brushed the crumpled up Monster Burger wrappers off of my laptop. I powered it up. Okay. Sunset time. Shit. What's the date? Don't judge. Let's see if you know what day it is after six months of nowhere to be. Okay, okay. Google “what's the date?” Type type, plunk plunk. Here we go. October 18. Sunset: 6:48 p.m. Minus an hour, minus another half. Count backwards on my fingers and...voila. I gotta be there at 5:18. Okay. Another glance at the clock. 5:01. Shit.
I tucked and rolled. Hard. Shoes on. Ready. Wait. I was still in last night's outfit. Should I change? Nah, too much hassle. Then again, DeeDee might notice. Girls always notice. Okay. I should probably change. I peeled off my clothes and threw them on the ever-growing floor pile. And yeah, I felt pretty bad about myself for a few seconds and sucked in my budding paunch when I caught sight of my abs in the door mirror. They were more like a flesh-colored party ball keg than a six-pack.
I scrambled around until I found my last two fresh socks, then dove into my dresser. Clean T-shirt, shorts, underpants (the feel of swamp ass was still tangible in my mind, real or not). Check. Ready to go. Except for the sweater teeth. I definitely couldn't dragon breath my way into DeeDee's heart. I was still brushing, mouth foaming and minty, when my feet hit the bottom of the stairs.
Mom called from the kitchen. “Where ya going, honey?” She stopped doing dishes long enough to shoot me a concerned smile. The worry/anger wrinkle between her eyebrows was twitching. “Are you okay? You slept the whole day.”
“Gert a jorb,” I said, pursing my lips to keep the toothpaste from splurping out. “Lade.”
Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “A job. How great!” She didn't even try to disguise her complete joy and relief. “Is that what you're wearing?”
I looked down. Army green cargo shorts. One white sock, one yellow one. “Female Body Inspector” T-shirt, perma-wrinkled, two stains of unknown origin. I shrugged. Good enough.
I dropped my toothbrush on the table next to the key bowl in the entryway and was on my Huffy pedaling for dear life less than a minute later. And yes, I do have a car, if you must know. But no, I can't drive it because I can't afford to pay the insurance or the thousand bucks to repair the dead battery, flat tire, and rusted-out brake lines, and no, my parents won't pay, I already asked. They said I needed to learn responsibility. I was an adult now and bailing me out wasn't gonna teach me anything. Blah blah blah.
Now, where was I? Oh yeah. Pedaling. Furiously. I spit out the last of my toothpaste at the stop sign at the intersection of Cemetery Road and Crossroads Crossing, the most rundown street in the burbs, where the 24/7 Dairy Mart, the Monster Burger, the Jesus Saves Religious Supply, the Cash4Gold, the Temptations Tavern, a weirdo pawnshop, and the Sinbad's Strip joint (where I'm sad to say I have never been because I'm too broke to tip), all reside. Yeah, I know, Crossroads Crossing. Stupid street name right? There are lots of those in the burbs in the Midwest. I passed Data Point Court on the way there. What kind of douche bag, polo-shirt wearing developer puts that street name on a city form with a straight face? I'll tell you: No guy with any respect at all for art, culture, or the people who have to drive by that stupid sign every damn day, that's for sure.
I pedaled to the parking lot faster than I ever had, in part because my newly refurbed Huffy just flew. Wheels go much faster when the rims and chain aren't rusty. Guess I didn't hallucinate those sweet sweet bike repairs. Still, I tried not to think too hard about it because that part of last night didn't make any more sense today than it did last night, and I couldn't blame the bike on Big Dan's weed.
The 24/7 Dairy Mart looked completely different in the daytime. For starters, the
re were other customers. The lot had a bunch of cars in it, and people were rushing in and out, most carrying bags of chips and twelve-packs of Lite beer or lottery tickets and slushies. Geesh. At night, this place was a graveyard. Abandoned.
I locked my bike to a post underneath the neon store sign. A chill ran through me, but I didn't quite know why. I examined the lot, the store, the sign, trying to pinpoint what was wrong, but came up zeros. Nothing was out of place. The store's wall of windows were plastered in yellow banners advertising “hot, fresh coffee,” milk and eggs and chips, cigarette specials. The 24/7 Dairy Mart sign buzzed neon blue, yellow and pink, like always. The whiteboard section with the movable letters advertised “2 for $2 chili dogs,” “Ice-cold beer at state minimum prices,” and six-dollar packs of Pall Malls. Normal, corner store stuff. Nothing weird at all. All righty then.
I attempted but failed to smooth the wrinkles out of my T-shirt. Then, I stepped inside and stood there on the welcome mat, looking around like an idiot, as customers stomped past me on their way out. I didn't know what to do, which was why first days at jobs universally sucked. You didn't know where to go, who to see, what the routine was, what the manager looked like, who's cool and who's not. They didn't know you either, so you had no choice but to stand there like a wide-eyed dumbass waiting for someone else to make the first move. My stomach churned. Total reminder of why job hunting blew: You stick to it long enough, you'll actually get a new job.
“You lost, dahlin'?” The lady behind the register called to me.
She dropped change into the hand of a man in a tan tweed blazer, who quickly shuffled off with a box of mac 'n' cheese and a can of Vienna sausages. The world's saddest bachelor dinner.
The lady smacked some gum that was the same frosty pink as her lipstick. She raised an eyebrow, waiting for me to answer. She was what my friend Chico would call a Big Fine Honey. Five feet three, pushing two-fifty, most of it tits and booty. She had enough cushion on her belly to make her as soft and comforting as a full-body pillow in bed. Hey. Don't judge me. I'm using Chico terms. He's into that, and he's graphic. Plus, the hot pink tank top with “Sexy” written in rhinestones across the front showed off all the goods. A silver sequin scrunchie held back her bleach blonde ponytail. Her name tag read “Hello, my name is Junebug.”
“Dahlin'?” Junebug said at me again, tapping her hot pink press-on nails on the counter. “You all right?”
“Oh...uh...sorry.” I had to remind myself to look her in the eyes, not at her tits. “I'm Lloyd. The new guy.”
She looked me up and down. “Ya made the cut, huh?” She blew a gum bubble and popped it between her frosty, glossed Wet 'n' Wild lips. She shook her head. “Never can tell by looking, that's for damn sure.”
Junebug pointed at a tuft of greasy mouse-brown hair bobbing up and down in aisle two. “That's Ricky. He'll get ya started.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Good luck, dahlin'. You'll need it.” Junebug winked, then rung up a big biker in head-to-toe leather, who was buying a pile of beef jerky and chewing tobacco.
I shuffled over to aisle two. Woah boy. Where did I even start with Ricky? He was the exact opposite of the impeccably dressed, impossibly handsome Asmodius Faust. Ricky was a hot mess. He had greasy hair in a bowl cut, and brown-rimmed coke-bottle glasses in a frame they probably haven't made since 1972. The lenses were so thick his eyes were distorted. His shoulders were rounded to the point of barely existing. He was a porcine mound of a man, shaped like a long round potato and soft like a pillow all over. He didn't have a single defined muscle. Even his hands were pudgy. He wore blue plaid polyester pants pulled up way higher than his belly button. And worse, a white vinyl belt cinched him too tight right around the middle. He topped off the look with white, thick-soled orthopedic tennis shoes. Ricky needed some serious style lessons, and that was a sad commentary coming from a guy who only owned a drawer full of tasteless joke T-shirts (most with at least one salsa stain) and cargo shorts. One look and you just knew this guy lived with his purple-haired grandma, and she personally picked out all of his clothes. Probably even laid them out for him the night before.
“Hey. I'm Lloyd. Mr. uh...Faust said you'd get me started,” I said. “I'm new.”
Ricky stopped stacking microwave bowls of Top Ramen on the shelf and looked at me wide-eyed. He white-knuckled one package in his hand, and from the shaking dry-noodle sound I could tell he was trembling. He looked absolutely terrified. A sweat-bead mustache formed on his top lip.
“You okay, man?” I asked.
“You're sure you want this job? Like, sure sure?” His voice cracked, going dog-pitch high.
“Uh, yeah. I guess. Why?” I shrugged. I needed cash. Plus, you know, free slushies. All. The. Time.
He tugged at his collar, buttoned up all the way, of course. “It's not too late to run,” Ricky whispered. The sweat rings in the armpits of his short-sleeve yellow polyester dress shirt grew two sizes. “The graveyard shift is....dangerous.”
“I'm cool,” I said. “It's all good.”
What was the worst that could happen? Frat house beer run?
“It's your choice.” Ricky nervously smoothed out the pleats of his plaid pants. Lord help him, those pants. “I can't stop you. That's the rule. So if you're sure sure follow me.”
He aligned the bowl of ramen perfectly on the shelf, then I followed him to the white door between the pop bottle pyramids, the one that led to Faust's totally sweet man office. But once we stepped in, Ricky turned the other direction, left instead of right. We inched through a narrow tunnel between plastic tubs stacked high on each wall, labeled aspirin, cigarettes, condoms, personal care, automotive. Ricky's belly rubbed against the tubs as we inch-wormed through. We stopped at a purple door with a placard that said “Lounge. Employees only.”
“Do you have your name tag?” Ricky asked.
Shit. It was on my dresser, in the envelope. “Uh. No. Sorry. Forgot.”
Ricky huffed. “Where is it?”
“At home. No big deal. I'll bring it tomorrow.”
He jabbed his index finger into my chest and locked eyes with me. His were distorted, blown up to doe-eye size by the curve of his impossibly thick lenses. “Never, ever leave your name tag or your employee manual unattended. Always bring them with you. Your life and the world depends on it. Do you understand?”
“Uh...sure man. Yeah.” Wow. Over-dramatic much, Ricky? Clearly, this dude was too lazy to plink me out a new tag on the label maker.
“You can't work the graveyard shift without it.” Ricky poked me as he talked, to emphasize his points. “You can't get into the lounge or communicate with Kevin without it. And, you can't see without it.”
“I can see just fine,” I said. Seriously, dude. I wasn't the one with two-inch-thick glasses.
“Yeah, sure. Keep telling yourself that.” Ricky was super sweating now, beads of it nervously running over his pink cheeks. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “Okay. Okay. Stay Calm. Relax.”
He wasn't talking to me. He was pep-talking himself. He ran his hands over his shirt and pants again. He moved a plastic tub. In the wall behind it was a rectangular green door, about the size of a microwave, with a keypad next to it. “What's your home address?” Ricky asked.
I told him, and he typed my address into the keypad as I spoke, along with “new employee welcome pack.” He hit enter, tensed up and held his breath. The edges of the door lit up bright yellow, then the door hissed and popped open. Smoked wisped out. Inside, sat a half-opened manila envelope with my name typed on it. Woah. Neat trick. It looked exactly like the envelope at home on my dresser, but it couldn't be that one, just a really good copy. Don't ask me how he pulled this off, but I was impressed.
Ricky handed the envelope to me. “Now put on your name tag. And don't let this out of your sight ever again.”
“Yeah. Sure, man.” I fished out the name tag and put it on, mostly to shut Ricky up. No good ever came from riling up the hig
h-strung rules lawyer on the first day of the job.
Ricky nodded, then pressed his own name tag against a black fob next to the purple door. It swung open.
Holee. Crap. Jackpot! Employee Lounge, my butt. The room was plush, like Vegas nightspot VIP room posh. (I mean, judging from the ones I'd seen on TV.) We're talking wall-to-wall red shag carpet. Black flocked wallpaper. Red velvet couches and booths. A giant crystal chandelier dripping with mood light. There was a wall of glass-front coolers stocked with any kind of beverage you could ever want. A zillion-inch TV was mounted on one wall, covering nearly the entire thing.
A guy in a big white chef's hat stood behind a counter with a built-in grill, like one of those made-to-order omelette stations at a fancy hotel breakfast buffet. Or, like, the guy working the steak-cutting booth at Golden Corral. “This is Chef.” Ricky tugged hard at his shirt collar again, as if it shrunk a size and was choking him.
I waved at Chef and said, “Hiya.”
“Don't make conversation.” Ricky smacked my wave down, then squeezed my forearm so tight his fingernails left little half-moons in my skin. “Chef responds to food orders only. He'll make you whatever you want to eat on your break. And that's it. No conversation, got it?”
“You mean like a tuna melt? And potato salad? And macaroni salad?” My tummy rumbled as I said it. I did sleep all day. I hadn't eaten.
“Wow. That was really specific,” Ricky said. “But, yeah, that. Or, anything else you could possibly want to eat.”
“Uh, how much is that gonna set me back?” Gourmet meals I could not afford.
“It's all free. Drinks, food, everything in here,” Ricky said.
I was so stoked I jumped up and down once or twice. Then, the hairs on my arms stood up, but not from excitement. “Dude, it's a bit cold in here. Can you dial up the thermostat?”
“No.” Ricky snapped. “It's gotta stay cold to keep things...fresh.”