CHAPTER 16
The persistent droning of my alarm eventually roused me from my troubled sleep. I punished it with a few smacks to its snooze button but eventually got up. I managed to drag myself to my first class on time, but paying attention to the lecture proved to be a considerable challenge. I drifted between nearly falling asleep and thinking about the previous night. When the class finally ended, I dragged myself to the Student Union and grabbed a late breakfast including a large mug of hot black tea. It was no Intergalactic cold brew, but it seemed to help get my neurons firing.
Jake walked up to my table just as I was finishing my breakfast.
“Hey, Barry, haven't seen you around the dorm lately. Is that hotty of yours keeping you out past your bedtime?” He punched my shoulder playfully.
“It's not like that, Jake. Well... OK, yes, I've been spending time with Dee, but she's not just some 'hotty'.” Jake's juvenile banter was annoying me more than usual today.
“Hey, no need to get so serious, dude,” he replied as he pulled up a chair, “If you've got, like, a real thing going with this chick, I'm happy for you and all.”
I started to object, explain that Dee and I were just friends, but stopped. 'Friends' didn't fully capture the complexity of the situation. And Jake wouldn't understand anyway. His views on male/female relationships never seemed to rise beyond the carnal. I decided to let it drop. Instead, I just said, “yeah, sorry. I'm just a bit wiped... been pretty busy lately.”
“No probs dude, just don't forget we have study group again tomorrow night.”
“Sure, I'll be there,” I assured him.
“Awesome. Bring your Theory notes. I need to copy yesterday's lecture. Oh, and don't be afraid to bring your squeeze around... she's totally cool.”
“Yeah, I'll tell her you said that.” I tried to imagine Dee's reaction to being described as my 'squeeze'.
“Cool. Say... does she have any friends? Like... hot single friends?”
With an extreme effort of will, I manage to not roll my eyes. “I haven't met any of her single friends,” I insisted. OK, maybe that wasn't technically true. Ruth was probably single, but I doubt she would have much interest in someone like Jake, and I wasn't particularly in the mood to pimp Dee's friends to him anyway.
“Well, never hurts to ask,” Jake replied, “It's all about networking, you know what I mean? You have to be constantly expanding those social connections... opening up opportunities.”
I just nodded. This was not the first time Jake had share this philosophy. Heck, he had nearly declared as an art major just to expand his chances to meet women. I slurped down the last of my tea and stood up. “Well, I've got to get going. See you at study group,” I promised, and headed on to my next class.
The rest the school day seemed to fly past. I ended my last class a few hours before I was due to meet Dee at the Intergalactic, so I swung back to the dorms to clean up and change clothes. While there, I remembered Dee saying something about snacks. We could bring in snacks but not beverages. Did that mean I should bring snacks, or was it optional? Would it be rude to show up empty handed? I decided to take no chances and stop at the store on the way there.
Rupino's Market is a great little grocery store. Big enough to have everything you might want, yet locally owned so it has more personality and charm than your typical chain store. It is within walking distance of the campus as well as one of the nicer residential neighborhoods. The owners really know their customers and have managed to stock a decent balance of specialty foods for their upper middle income shoppers while still offering low cost staples for the local college crowd. I drifted through the extensive snack aisle, looking at bags of vegan whole grain chips and gluten free crackers and two-for-one student saver specials on generic chips. I finally decided on an inexpensive bag of pretzels and a jar of mustard. Less greasy than chips and a better value by weight. Plus I love mustard. Honestly, the pretzel is just a vehicle for the mustard, so I went cheap on the pretzel and then spent a bit more for a decent brown mustard. Happy with my choice, I headed to the checkout.
Rupina's has so far managed to avoid adding self checkout machines. As much as I love technology, I was actually rather happy about this. A lot of students have to work their way through college, and Rupina's is one of the better local employers. They pay better than minimum wage and treat their people well, so the staff tends to stick around and are pretty good at their jobs. Of course there is still some turnover. This is a college town, so young workers often move on to bigger and better things.
That said, I was a bit surprised to see a new face working the checkout. Most of the turnover inevitably happens closer to graduation, and it was still around mid-semester. This young woman was definitely new to the job. She seemed to know her way around the cash register and scanning equipment, but there was a tentativeness about how she handled it. Still, she was scanning things through at a brisk enough pace, and always had a smile and friendly word for each customer. Her name tag identified her as 'Winna'.
The line inched forward, and she began scanning the items of the guy just ahead of me. Several items in, the scanner gave a distressed beep. She scanned it again. Same beep. She peered at the the display on her register.
“I'm sorry, this might take a minute,” she said as she punched at the register's membrane keypad. She scanned the item again. Same beep. The customer gave an exasperated sigh. She tried entering the UPC number manually. Same result. “I'm really sorry,” she apologized again, then reached behind the machine and power cycled it. I watched as it rebooted, curious if I could spot what operating system it was running. It flashed to a company logo before giving me any clue.
“I can't believe this fucking bullshit,” the customer grumbled. I was a bit surprised by this burst of profanity, but said nothing. Everyone has a bad day now and again.
The machine finished booting, and she scanned the item again, but again the machine complained.
“Gawd almighty, can we just get someone who knows how to do her fucking job over here?” the guy complained. Winna was visibly upset by this, but managed to stay professional.
“I am very sorry, sir,” she insisted, then turned and called over to the customer service desk, “I need a price check on three.”
The store manager Gretchen came over from the service desk and looked at the offending item, a can with a smiling person made of pasta on its label. Personally, I've never been a fan of anthropomorphizing food. It's just creepy. I mean, who wants to eat something that looks like a person? Gretchen was not disturbed by this cannibalistic imagery, however, and wandered off toward the canned goods aisle in search of a price.
“This is just ridiculous,” the guy continued complaining. I got a good look at him as he turned to watch Gretchen engaged in her price checking mission. He was middle aged, a stout build, slightly overweight. He had graying brown hair and a well trimmed beard and mustache. His clothing was casual and nondescript. He was the sort of person who might blend into any crowd, but right now he stood out. It was like he was painted in sharper colors than all the other figures on a painting. His agitated state seemed to radiate away from him in waves.
“I don't know what the world's coming to these day,” he grumbled, “people coming in fresh off the boat, not knowing how to do a lick of work. Nobody seeming to care about service or quality any more. My pap was right. The world is sliding to hell.”
I tried to make sense of his complaint, but there didn't seem to be any. Did he think Winna was a recent immigrant? Granted, her complexion was a bit darker than average, and her features perhaps hinted at Polynesian ancestry, but her accent was strictly local. Besides, immigrant or not, she was doing just fine at her job as far as I could tell.
“It will just be a moment now,” she said as Gretchen returned. Gretchen circled around and joined Winna at the register and began poking at the membrane keyboard.
“I'll need
to enter a manager override,” she explained, “that error code means its not in the inventory, so you need to do a manual price but also add the UPC.” Winna nodded and watched as Gretchen finished punching in all the data.
“Is this going to take all fricken day?” the customer fumed.
Gretchen frowned briefly, but then forced a smile onto her face and said, “I'm all done here, sir. Winna can finish checking you out now. Sorry about the delay.”
The guy rolled his eyes and said, “You gonna leave her on my register? Can't you finish it?”
“I'm sorry, sir. I've really got to get back to the service desk. But I am sure everything will be fine now.”
“Yeah, well it would be if you hired people who can do their damn jobs properly.”
I had been growing increasing annoyed with this guy, and this last bit must have sent me over the top. Suddenly I found myself saying, “Oh come on, she didn't do anything wrong. It was the machine causing the problems.”
“Who asked you?” he said, as if my interjection was somehow shocking behavior and his extended tantrum was not. In all honestly, I was a bit surprised at myself, but I charged ahead anyway.
“I'm just saying it wasn't her fault, these things just happen. How about you cut her some slack.”
“Gawd almighty, its people like you and your low standards that are bringing this country down. If I had done that sort of shoddy work in my pap's shop, he would've tanned my hide.” He then paid and left without further comment.
Winna scanned my two items. I paid, and as she handed me change she quietly said, “Thank you.”
“No problem,” I answered, “It really wasn't your fault.”
“I know I shouldn't let it bother me. Difficult customers just comes with the job, right? But everyone's been so nice until now, it sort of caught me off guard.”
“Well, hang in there. I think you are doing just fine,” I assured her. She nodded and smiled and moved on to the next customer.
I left the store and began heading toward the nearby bus stop. My path took me past someone loading groceries into the back of a station wagon. I noticed at the last moment that it was the difficult customer. Rather than suddenly change course, I looked off toward the bus stop and pretended to not see him. Unfortunately, he did not return the favor.
“Hey, you there. Nice of you to stick your nose in where it's not needed.”
I stopped. I don't know why, but I did. Maybe because it felt rude not to answer a person, and I had really had my fill of rude behavior. “It really wasn't her fault, you know. I just didn't want her getting into trouble just because you were in a bad mood.”
“Don't you tell me about my own damn mood,” he yelled. His face was actually turning red.
“Hey, no need to get upset. I just mean... I'm sure you're a nice person and all... I just meant...” What did I mean? I was beginning to suspect nothing I said was going to defuse this situation.
How had I managed this? Less than a day since pissing off drug dealers, and I was about to get in a fight at the grocery store of all places. It was very unlikely Dee would ride to my rescue this time. I felt a now familiar tingly sensation over my skin, a weird sense of being disconnected from events and my own body. I looked at the belligerent guy in front of me. He was ranting about something. Something about my generation and work ethic and how things were different when he was my age. He was at least twice my age. And yet, he looked... younger... somehow. I looked at his eyes. His face. It held anger that was edged with an incongruous hint of panic. He was like a child. An angry, afraid child. His tirade rolled on, but the individual words sailed over me, unheard. I suddenly realized I was speaking.
“He can't hurt you anymore.”
“What did you say?” He seemed as surprised by my statement as I was.
Nevertheless, I repeated it. “He can't hurt you anymore.”
The guy took a step back. A look of confusion, perhaps even shock, on his face. “Why... What do you...” then he fell silent. He reached up and rubbed at one of his eyes. He leaned against his car, looked into the distance, and seemed to hold his breath for a moment. He started to shake. He clamped his hand over his mouth, and the tremors grew stronger. I feared he was having a heart attack.
“Hey, are you OK?” I asked.
He nodded, but then his hand fell from his mouth, and an agonized sob slipped out. He slid to the ground, his back still against his station wagon, and began weeping. He buried his head in his hands and cried, and his pain was so raw and urgent, I nearly cried with him. I started to reach for him, wanting to offer to help somehow, but at the same time I was reluctant to intrude on his pain. He saw my hand, and waved me away. I didn't know how to respond, so I just turned and hurried toward the bus stop. When I reached it, I looked back and saw him finally rise to his feet, close the back of the station wagon, and climb behind the wheel. He did not immediately start his car.
He was still sitting there when the bus finally came and carried me away.
Devious Origins Page 22