We walk a couple meters into Aisle One. Gilbert taps a few buttons on the gun’s interface, and then takes a box of condoms off the shelf. “Lubricated,” he says. “Jack will appreciate that.” He points the gun at the box and pulls the trigger. A blinking red line of light falls on the barcode. There’s a beep. Gilbert presses a few more buttons.
“How many are you ordering?”
“A fuckton. Come on.”
We walk back to the warehouse, and Gilbert accesses the computer. I watch the entrance while he works, as well as the doors that lead to the Meat department’s back room. I’m petrified we’ll get caught. Why did I agree to this?
“There,” he says after a few minutes. “Now the Produce order for Monday consists of all condoms, and no veggies.”
Gilbert turns the alarm back on and locks the doors, and we get back in the Hummer. He drives out of the parking lot as fast as he pulled in. I don’t speak, and neither does he.
In my driveway, with my fingers on the door handle, I say, “Why did you need me to come with you tonight? I didn’t actually do anything.”
He doesn’t answer for a moment. Then he says, “I wanted you to enjoy your vengeance. I could have done it myself, but then watching Jack haul all those condoms off the truck wouldn’t be as satisfying for you—just funny.”
“Oh. Well, thanks, I guess.”
“Do you mind if I smoke in your driveway?”
“Go ahead.”
We get out, and he opens the Hummer’s back hatch. We sit.
Gilbert takes an apple out of his pocket. “Behold,” he says. “I made a pipe out of an apple.”
He’s carved a little bowl where the stem used to be, and lined it with tin foil. After a couple puffs he holds it out to me. The thick smoke wafts on the crisp November air.
“No, thanks.”
*
My next shift is Monday afternoon. I wake up around 10, and for once Marcus Brutus isn’t crying for food, or water, or his kitty litter to be changed, or release from an existential crisis. He’s just lying on the coffee table, on his back, with four paws up in the air. He tracks me with his eyes as I walk by. I stop. “What? Are you completely at peace with the world today, or something?”
I have an appointment with Bernice before work. I don’t tell her about getting locked in the freezer. I do tell her what’s resulted, though—that I think I’ve moved past any thoughts of suicide. She asks how, and I give a true answer. I say I no longer feel so alone.
But that’s only part of the truth.
The possibility that someone wants to kill me has made me realize there’s nothing I want more than to live.
Chapter Nine
One day, the Professor approached me in the common area. “I hear you’re writing a novel,” he said.
“No, I’m not,” I said. “I don’t write anymore.”
“Tell whoever reads your novel that they aren’t going to learn anything from a novel. Fiction doesn’t properly represent cause and effect—it’s just what the author thinks would happen. Tell them they should be reading non-fiction.”
“Sure. I’ll make that my epigraph.”
“I used to want to be a professor, you know. Before my…issues.”
I considered this for a moment, and said, “I think you’d make a good one. I’ve learned a lot from you already.”
The Professor smiled—for the first time, that I’d seen. “Thank you.” He walked away.
I glanced across the room and saw Rodney sitting on the other side, glaring at me. He was drinking a can of something. He held it up so I could see it, then chugged it in one go.
He smashed the empty can against his head, and roared. I had to try pretty hard to keep a grin from forming. He got up and stomped away.
*
Brent calls my name as I wheel my bike toward a 2-10 Monday shift. He’s standing near the corner of the building, motioning for me to come over. I hold up a finger—I need to lock up my bike, first.
I snap the padlock shut and walk to meet him. He’s smoking a joint. “Hello,” I say.
“Hey, dude. I heard what happened on Friday, with the freezer. Sorry I wasn’t there.”
“It’s fine.”
He holds out the joint. “Want some?”
“No, thanks. I don’t smoke. And I’m about to start my shift.”
He pulls back one side of his unzipped jacket, revealing the Spend Easy logo on his breast pocket. “So am I. We’re working together.”
I shrug. “To each his own.”
“Don’t act so superior. The way you’re looking at me right now, it makes me want to punch you in the face. Seriously.” He tosses the roach onto the ground. “You think I shouldn’t be working here, right? You think they should fire all the stoners.”
“Think what you want, Brent.”
I walk into Spend Easy, expecting Frank to summon me to his office at any moment. I glance up at his tinted window as I walk past the cash registers, but there’s no looming silhouette there.
The first three hours of my shift are devoted to bringing overstock out to the sales floor and checking to see if it will fit on the shelves. At 5:37, a frozen order comes in. There are three pallets. I take them off the truck and put them in the middle of the warehouse.
The truck leaves, and I go to the coat rack at the front of the store, where two heavy, padded coats are hanging. I take one. I brought a pair of gloves from home, and I put on those, too. And a hat.
Standing in the warehouse, bundled up enough to weather a blizzard, I stare at the pallets and avoid looking toward the freezer.
I could ask Brent to do the frozen order alone. But that would almost guarantee it wouldn’t get done.
This is part of the job. I need to be able to work in the freezer.
I look around to make sure no one else is in the warehouse. Then I take a deep breath, as though about to dive deep underwater, and haul the first pallet into the freezer. Then I bring in the second.
I’m about to move the third inside when Jack appears. I close the freezer door and wait. I won’t go in there with him here.
But the door buzzer goes off, and he lets in a delivery guy. He won’t trap me in again with a witness present. Right? My heart beating rapidly, I shove the third pallet into the freezer and get out as quickly as I can, slamming the door shut.
Jack is watching the delivery guy pull a pallet of condoms off the truck. His eyes are as wide as Tommy’s. The guy hands Jack a piece of paper, and he stares at it like he hopes what’s written on it will change. I grab a broom and start sweeping.
“There aren’t any vegetables listed here,” Jack says. “There are just 500 boxes of condoms.”
“Yep,” the guy says. “That’s the whole order.”
“I didn’t order condoms. I ordered vegetables. For the Produce department.”
“That’s not what the invoice says.”
“Didn’t you know you were delivering a Produce order? You made a mistake.”
“I didn’t make any mistake. This is what they gave me.”
“Then the warehouse made a mistake. You have to take them back there.”
“Call them, if it’ll make you feel better. But these condoms travelled hundreds of miles. For a special trip, just to return them—that would cost more than the amount on the invoice. The supplier will refund the condoms, but Spend Easy would have to pay for their transport.”
Jack crumples the invoice in his hands. “This is $1800 worth of condoms.”
“Yep.”
“What am I supposed to do with $1800 worth of condoms?”
The guy shrugs. “Help solve overpopulation. Listen, I have more deliveries to make. I gotta go.”
“What about the vegetables?”
“Sorry, man. You won’t find anyone to bring you produce at this hour.”
He leaves. Jack looks at the crumpled invoice in his hand, and straightens it out again. He walks to the desk and picks up the phone.
He doesn�
��t dial anything, right away. He puts the phone down, leans his forehead against the wall, and takes deep breaths. “Oh my God,” he says in a high-pitched whimper. “Oh my God.”
He picks up the phone and punches some numbers. “Sir,” he says, “we have a bit of a problem here, sir. It seems there was a mistake with the order. I don’t know how it happened, but it would seem the order has been replaced with 500 boxes of condoms. Condoms, sir. Yes. He said the amount we’d spend returning them is greater than the refund. Yes, sir. I’m so sorry. I’ll wait for you here.”
He hangs up, and finally sees me. His eyes narrow. “Do you know anything about this?”
“About what?”
“Do you not see the pallet of condoms?”
“I just assumed you Produce guys were planning a staff meeting.”
I don’t go back into the freezer until Frank turns up. While I’m in there I keep my eyes on the door as I fumble products onto my cart.
I hear Frank ranting to Jack about “the Robertsons’ order”, and it soon becomes evident that a customer has placed an order for a large number of fruit baskets, which they are coming to pick up tomorrow.
I take a break around seven. Frank’s son, Randy, is already sitting in the break room, chatting with Lesley-Jo. Randy looks a bit annoyed when I enter. He isn’t wearing a uniform.
“Hey, Sheldon,” Lesley-Jo says.
“Hey.” I take my vegetarian spaghetti from the fridge and put it in the microwave. I look at Randy. “Why are you here? You’re not working tonight.”
“He brought me supper,” Lesley-Jo says. A burger and fries sit on the table in front of her. She’s cleaning her glasses with a tissue.
“How nice,” I say.
Randy excuses himself soon after that, claiming he has an essay due tomorrow. After he’s gone, Lesley-Jo offers me a fry, and I accept. “I think he likes you,” I say.
“Oh, I’m not the first cashier he’s given food to. He’s looking for a date. Any date.”
“Will you go on one with him?”
She shrugs. “He’s not bad looking. I might, if he wasn’t going for three other girls at the same time.”
I nod. “If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one. Or four rabbits, in this case. That’s a Russian proverb.” The microwave beeps, and I get up to collect my dinner.
“I’m not a rabbit.”
“That’s not—”
“You know, Sheldon, if you wanted a date with a cashier, I bet you could have one, easy. They all seem to adore you.”
I glance back at her, eyebrows raised. “Is that an invitation?”
“I was thinking of Marilyn, actually. Are you into older women?” She stands up, laughing. “That’s the end of my break. Have a good shift, Sheldon!”
*
Jack manages to buy enough produce from other stores to satisfy the Robertsons. Gilbert says it’s a lucky thing he did. According to him, Spend Easy is already a few million dollars in the hole. If the store lost another big customer, and Frank blamed Jack, who knows where Jack would be working right now.
The next day, Frank has working cameras installed. Men with ladders make their way around Spend Easy, taking down the fake ones and replacing them with black globes.
“It doesn’t matter,” Gilbert says. “No one’s going to watch the footage. Even on fast forward, real life is incredibly boring.”
Frank orders Ernie to move the pallet of condoms next to the Dairy cooler, where I assume they’ll sit until he figures out what to do with them. Jack doesn’t seem to have taken much heat from Frank after all. It makes sense, really. How could he have accidentally cancelled the entire order, walked to Aisle One, and ordered 500 boxes of condoms instead? It must be obvious to Frank that the order was tampered with.
So the question is, whom does he suspect?
*
Gilbert was wrong. Frank really enjoys footage of real life. Ralph claims Frank is able to access the feed from his computer, at home, and it soon becomes clear this isn’t mere propaganda.
One night, Frank calls the warehouse and asks for Brent. He tells him that if he and Gilbert don’t stop putting cardboard in the dumpster, they will be written up. Company policy dictates cardboard go in the cardboard compactor, to be recycled.
“Looks like surveillance footage isn’t so boring after all,” I say to Gilbert after Frank’s call. “Looks like Frank could watch real life all day.”
Gilbert shakes his head. “This doesn’t prove anything. Ernie’s working tonight too—Frank’s tree-hugging informant. He probably called Frank to rat us out, and then Frank pretended to spot it on the cameras. To hide the fact he has a big fat mole in Grocery.”
Nevertheless, Gilbert starts putting cardboard in the cardboard compactor.
On another shift the intercom beeps, and Frank’s voice comes out: “Gilbert Ryan, tuck in your shirt, please. Gilbert Ryan, tuck in your shirt.” We’re both in Aisle Two. Gilbert stuffs his shirt into his pants, frowning.
I haven’t heard about anyone from other departments getting reprimanded. Eric and the Produce guys have started wrestling each other in the warehouse. Doesn’t that show up on camera? Isn’t roughhousing a violation of company policy?
Eric always wins these wrestling matches. He’s huge, and military trained. It’s not serious wrestling—just a playful way for Eric to express his physical dominance. For the Produce guys’ part, they appear to love it. They emerge from Eric’s arms red-faced and beaming. I think they enjoy submitting to authority.
Two weeks after I was locked in the freezer, Frank calls a staff meeting.
Ralph tells us the purpose of the meeting is to discuss new store policies, and to refresh employees on some existing ones.
Attendance, he says, is mandatory.
*
I didn’t realize how many people work at Spend Easy. That is, there are fewer than I expected. We’re holding the meeting in the front end, and I estimate about 60 people gathered around the cash registers.
Frank called this meeting, but he doesn’t speak. That’s left to Ralph, who picks up the Service counter phone and taps a button. His voice emanates from the ceiling speakers.
“All staff to the front end, please.”
Matt and Paul emerge from Aisle Five. Unlike almost everyone else, they’re wearing uniforms. The Produce employees are standing near the mouth of Aisle Two, and they’re also in uniform. Grocery is scattered throughout the crowd.
The sun set over an hour ago, and it’s dark outside the big windows.
Ralph sits on two upside-down milk crates, one stacked on top of the other. He surveys the crowd.
Silence, now. Ralph is still holding the phone receiver, cradled in his lap. The milk crates don’t look very comfortable. His feet aren’t quite touching the floor, which gives him something of a boyish look. He glances to his right, toward the parking lot. Ernie is leaning against the Service counter beside him.
Ralph clears his throat.
He raises the receiver.
“This is a grocery store, and we serve the public. Everything we do here—in the Grocery department, in the Bakery, in the Produce department, at the cash registers—is for the customer’s benefit.”
Jack interrupts.
“That’s right! And when you break store policy, you do the customer a disservice!”
“True, Jack. We work in the food industry, the most important sector of the economy. We have a lot of responsibility.”
I glance at Jack. He’s exchanging grins with another Produce worker.
“You’ve all been given the Employee Handbook,” Ralph says, “and you’re expected to know the policies.” He lowers the receiver for a second and looks around at everyone. He raises it again. “None of us are children. We’re all getting paid to do a job, and we owe it to ourselves to do it well.”
Murmured agreement—from the cashiers, mostly.
“The store has to be kept neat and tidy. We all need to make sure our unifo
rms are tucked in. And if you don’t know the policies, you need to learn them, or you won’t be able to do your job effectively. Earlier this week there was an altercation over prices, between an employee and a customer. The customer found a price tag for a product that was on sale the week before. The tag should have been changed, but our policy is that if the customer sees a product listed for a reduced price, they get it for that price. The customer knew our policy, and the employee didn’t. If the employee had known the policy, that argument could have been avoided.”
Ernie whispers something in Ralph’s ear. Ralph hesitates, then hands him the receiver, looking uncertain. Ernie stares into the crowd. At first I think his gaze is on me, but then I realize he’s looking behind me, to my right. At Brent.
“We also have a policy against throwing cardboard in the dumpster.”
“Shut up, Ernie,” Brent says.
Frank is standing a couple feet into Aisle Four, staring out the windows. “Quiet down,” he shouts.
“When you throw out recyclable material, you do the public a disservice,” Ernie says. “You actually do the planet a disservice. No one is coming to save humanity, you guys. We have to look out for ourselves. We’re running up against all kinds of environmental limits, here, and if we keep going the way we’re going, we won’t have any home left to live on. Earth will become just an empty ball of dirt, circling the sun forever.”
Ernie lowers the phone to his chest and looks at us, solemn-faced. The silence is complete.
Ralph takes the phone back. “So, um, some of us need to catch up on store policy, but it isn’t all doom and gloom. Spend Easy’s a good place to work, with employees who are lots of fun. Obeying store policy doesn’t mean we can’t have a good time together.”
Jack walks over and holds his hand out for the phone receiver.
“There are cameras now,” he says. “Working cameras. Breaking store policy will carry consequences, sometimes severe ones. You may have heard about the recent incident with the Produce order. Such transgressions will now warrant immediate termination.”
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