The Trouble Way

by James Seloover

  Dwight had a tall stepladder and was positioning it in front of the counter in the serving line. “Replacing a few of your burnt out light bulbs, Alice. Hedd’s orders.”

  “Well, it’s about damn time, they been burnt out for several weeks. Don’t be long now, we’re setting up for lunch,” Alice said, then turned and did the wet-tile slip-shuffle toward the kitchen.

  With the ladder set up, Dwight grabbed the black trash bag from the light box and mounted the ladder.

  Alice stopped before she got to the kitchen, turned and looked up at Dwight. “What’s in the garbage bag, Dwight?”

  Dwight was halfway up the ladder and turned to look over his shoulder at Alice, at the plastic bag, then back at Alice. “Keep your voice down. It’s poison,” he whispered. “Don’t want the entire store knowing we have a rat problem, especially the health department. Hedd says if they start nosing around and find a problem, the cafeteria could be shut down. Said he found feces.”

  “Okay,” Alice whispered back. “My lips are zipped.” She went through the door and stuck her head back out. “What’s feces?”

  “Rat shit.”

  “Ahh.” Her head disappeared back into the prep room.

  At the top of the ladder, Dwight reached up and slid the ceiling tile back and shook the contents of the bag onto the top of the adjacent tile, directly over the serving line then replaced the tile and descended the ladder, rolled the bag into a knot and jammed it into his hip pocket. The “rat poison” was already beginning to ripen.

  “Still working on the lights?” Alice winked at him. She was carrying a heavy serving pan of instant mashed potatoes. She placed the pan onto the steam table. “I hope it won’t take much longer, we’re going to be serving in about twenty minutes.”

  “Yummy, ten gallons of instant mashed potatoes, that looks mighty tasty,” Dwight said.

  “Don’t be a smart-ass, Dwight,” Alice said smiling up at him.

  “I’ll be done in a flash, just two more lights and I’ll be outa here and I’ll leave you to your gourmet potatoes. Shouldn’t be more than five minutes, ten, max. If it takes me more than twenty minutes, call the cops.”

  “If I were twenty years younger, Dwight, I’d give you a run around the old steam table.”

  “I bet you would, Alice.” And under his breath, “I bet you were one fast babe.”

  On his way back to the stockroom with the ladder, another thought occurred to him. He put the ladder away beside the roll-up door and then pulled the chain and opened the roll-up.

  With gloves on, Jake retrieved the two rattraps and shook the critters into another black plastic garbage bag. He made a quick scan of the stockroom and confirmed he was the sole worker there and went about his business, confident he had not been seen. He made one stop at the candy stockroom and one more in the cafeteria stockroom.

  When he finished, he went to the garden shop and picked up four traps, deliberately neglecting to record them on a store use markdown sheet. Walking the stockroom, he selected locations along several outside walls, baited and armed the traps, and placed them in likely varmint runs next to outside walls and close to exit doors. He put two near the pallets of dog food in one of the auxiliary stockrooms where he had seen signs of varmints. He planned to put containers of rat poison in hard to reach places on the high stock bins where dog food and wild birdseed pallets were stored and above several ceiling tiles near the main office. To increase his chances of luring more animals, he scattered some dog food pellets along with the poison around the area. Dead animals would be nearly impossible to locate in those areas; exactly his objective.

  “Dwight, what brought you out tonight?” Linda said after she opened the door.

  “I thought I’d check out what the little people are doing tonight. Sorry I didn’t call but I wasn’t near a phone.” Dwight walked into Linda’s apartment and made himself at home. “If this is a bad time, I can leave.”

  “Nah, it isn’t a bad time. It’s nice to see you.”

  “Care to go have a beer or something?”

  Within a half hour, they were cruising up Delridge Way looking for a place for a drink, settling on a hole-in-the-wall bar about a mile from Linda’s apartment.

  “Did you hear the latest? Ol’ Braunswine was in today and he informed Mr. Hedd that I had way too much help in receiving and they cut my help by twenty hours. They moved Candy to the cosmetic’s department and they’re not replacing her hours. So, I have to get twenty hours more work out of my crew. I’m down to three people. Not that Candy was much help anyway but she did do something. And she has a cute ass.” Linda gave him a slap on the arm.

  “I asked Mr. H if I was going to receive a bit more pay for the additional work I would obviously be required to do.”

  “How did that go?” Linda asked. “I’m guessing, not good.”

  “You know what the bastard said? He said with Braunswine as a DM, there were exactly two chances of anybody getting raises while he is in charge and they’re both zero. Then the bastard laughed. I’m telling you Lindy, they are going to be damn sorry they ever fucked with ol’ Dwight Hutton, and you can take that to the bank and earn interest on it. I’ve got a few things in the hopper. I don’t want to tell you, just in case. Just stay tuned to this station for the next several weeks. When you see the feces hit the fan, you will know Dwight has been on a secret mission.”

  “Feces. What’s feces?”

  “Shit Lindy, it’s shit.”

  “Oh ... why didn’t you just say shit? Sometimes I don’t know what you are thinking. Usually, though, it turns out to do with toilets or shit. I think you have way too much time on your hands, Dwight.

  “Educated people don’t say shit, they say feces.”

  “Whatever. Just be careful and don’t do anything you will regret. I’m sure it was Ms. Becky who recommended Candy to the boss for transfer,” Linda said.

  “Not to worry you’re cute little round ass, Lindy, I’ve got the situation under complete control. There are exactly two chances they are going to fuck ol’ Dwight over, and they are both zero.”

  “I sure hope so. I’d sure miss you if you got fired. On the subject of Candy, she’s a world-class ass-kisser and has Ms. Becky’s ass covered in lipstick. Ann filled me in on Candy and her lying-ass ways.”

  “Very interesting,” Dwight said. “What else do you know?”

  “Ann won’t want Candy anywhere near her department, I’m sure, and cosmetics is right next to the deli. She doesn’t trust her. She thinks Candy is stealing from her. And that’s after Ann was so nice and gave her a place to live when she got evicted from her last place.”

  “Well, maybe we can help Ann out.” Dwight said. “Spatter some feces on Candy’s halo.”

  “How can you do that? She’s in pretty tight with personnel. It might backfire on you. You may be the one covered with feces.”

  “Not to worry your pretty little head about it. You could even provide a little help, if you’re up to it.”

  “Ann is my really good friend and I will do anything to protect her. Just tell me what to do.”

  “It may take a few weeks. Let Candy get settled in,” Dwight said. “Before we redecorate her bright little halo. Take some of the sparkle off.”

  “When is Candy scheduled to work again?” Dwight asked.

  “She works early on Tuesday, according to Ann,” Linda said.

  “So, just exactly where in cosmetics does Candy-Cute-Ass work?” Dwight asked. He pulled open the glass door for Linda and they walked into Big Richards. It was late on Monday night, twenty minutes before closing. He grabbed a cart.

  “We’ll both need one,” Dwight said and pushed his cart toward Linda and he pulled another from the cart rack behind the service desk.

  “She works in the make-up section. You know, lipstick, mascara, stuff like that.” Linda said.

  “Couldn’t be more perfect. Lots of little stuff and things on a million peg hooks.”

  “What do you
mean, Dwight? Why is that perfect?”

  “Just do as I do and don’t make it look obvious. Take your time ... you’re shopping,” Dwight said and headed to the lingerie section, selecting several flimsy bras from the rack, holding them up to Linda, making like he was buying something for his girlfriend. With each one, he held it up, examined it in the light, took it off of the hanger, and returned the hanger to a different rack from where he selected the bra, and tossed the bra in his cart. “Bras and panties are excellent; either will do. Just make sure you select something on a hanger, something flimsy. Put the hanger back on a different rack, or drop it in one of the stray carts.”

  Linda followed and did what he said. “Hey, I like this one, she said as she pulled a lacy black number from the rack and held it up to herself displaying it for Dwight.

  “Very nice, Lindy, but, control yourself,” Dwight said. “We can shop for you next time.”

  With eight or ten different bras and panties from different racks lying in the bottom of their shopping cart, they turned to the cosmetic department. He browsed the lipstick section pulling a tube from several displays. Linda did the same. Each had about ten or fifteen shades of lipstick lying on top of the bras and panties.

  “Why the lingerie?”

  “The bras are to keep the lipstick from falling through the cart, that’s all. Plus, they are hard to re-hang ... takes forever to re-stock. They’re a nightmare for the clerks.”

  They went from lipstick, to eyeliner, to mascara, to any item that was in a clam-pack or were in tiny bottles. Next, they hit the fingernail polish and gathered several dozen from various displays.

  “Just take one of each color and take them from different shelves,” Dwight said. “Only select one item from a peg or shelf. One more thing, remove the best sellers, the items with two or more facings, and put them someplace else. Replace them with a similar item, but only an item that has one facing. The good seller will never be reordered and the replacement item will be ordered and will get overstocked because it doesn’t sell. I’m a fuckin’ genius.”

  Not a single employee asked them if they needed help. All employees they came near, in fact, avoided eye contact and often re-directed themselves down a different aisle to avoid them.

  “What if someone asks us what we are doing?” Linda asked.

  Dwight looked at Linda, put his hands on her shoulders and turned her directly toward him, like an elementary teacher needing to discipline an unruly youngster with an attention deficit affliction and needed her full attention. “Linda, Linda, Linda, look me directly in the eye. When have you ever, ever heard of, or seen, or been told of a Big Richards’ employee voluntarily, intentionally, or even accidentally asking a customer a question; or even a rumor of such activity? About anything? Remember, these people are at the bottom. They don’t get paid squat, they aren’t about to go out of their way to answer questions. In fact, as you can see, they go out of their way to not answer questions.”

  “You’re right, you’re right, silly me, you are definitely right, it never happens. How could I have been so stupid as to question your wisdom?”

  Dwight and Linda finished selecting items and putting them in their carts and they stopped. Each estimated they had nearly a hundred different cosmetic and lingerie items when Linda turned to Dwight and asked, “Now what?”

  “Nothing,” Dwight said. “Absolutely nothing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Push your cart into the hardware department and I’ll show you.” Dwight followed her with his cart. When they passed the domestic department, Dwight grabbed a couple bath towels and threw them over his merchandise and grabbed two more and handed them to Linda. When they got to hardware, he said, “Leave it.”

  “What?”

  “Leave it.” Dwight said it again and caught her hand and pulled her along with him and he left his full cart in the curtain department.

  “When Candy comes in tomorrow for her shift, the first thing she’ll do is go to the service desk where the return carts are assembled and she’ll be spending at least half a day trying to get the merchandise in those two carts, along with any others that have accumulated, returned to their proper homes.”

  “She get anything else done,” Linda said.

  “Bingo. We’ll just see how long management will put up with that bullshit. My guess is not very fucking long. Of course, I may be wrong. I have seen some pretty stupid managers around here.”

  “Anyway,” Dwight said, “it takes forever to hang cosmetics on those pegs and to return those small items to their right place on their shelves. You have to have the dexterity of a juggler to keep shit from falling on the floor trying to restock that small stuff. If I know Candy, she won’t return stuff to their home, she’ll shove it anyplace she can find an empty shelf or peg hook.”

  “Eventually, customers will complain of their favorite items being out of stock. The wrong items will be ordered because their home on the shelf will be empty. Pretty soon, she’ll be overstocked on the slow sellers and will be out of the best sellers. Given the employee’s proclivity to avoid customers, the customer’s will eventually stop shopping at Big Richards. Sales will tank and before she knows it, Candy-Cute-Butt will be sitting her little round ass in the personnel office getting her shiny little behind chewed about her lack of productivity and poor sales. They’ll be asking her why she is ordering merchandise she doesn’t need and why she is always out of the best sellers and why so many items are being miss-stocked.”

  “I’m not sure if I like all these references to Candy’s cute, little, round ass.” Linda said.

  “Sorry about the ‘ass’ comments; guess my mind gets distracted.”

  “I’ll let it slide for now since we’re trying to help Ann out. What about all that lingerie we put in the carts?”

  “That lingerie is what is called collateral damage, like burning down the village to get one enemy soldier, unfortunate but unavoidable. Those bras and panties take forever to re-hang and re-stock in the correct displays; it lowers the store’s overall productivity. That is getting The Man in general, not specifically getting Candy-ass. Oh … sorry … Candy-Cane.”

  “Dwight, you ought to be a store manager, you know all the tricks.”

  “That’s not bloody likely. I applied once for the management program and got rejected.”

  “What happened?”

  “Oh, something about ‘requisite education. After I see what those asshole assistants go through, I wouldn’t give that job to a one-legged chicken on a scooter.”

  “Dwight, you are so funny,” Linda said and took his hand as they walked out the front door.

  “That new assistant, Forest, ain’t so bad; he seems to have all the lug nuts screwing his head on securely. The other assistants’ nuts are either missing or cross-threaded.”

  “Yeah, Mr. Forest is sort of a cutie and he has nice little round butt too. What do you think of that?” Linda said as she gave Dwight’s arm a jerk. “Enough talk about work. Now, I want to show you a couple of my tricks,” she grabbed his elbow with both hands. “But first, how about a drink or two at the Triangle?”

  “I really like tricks and a Rainier always makes them seem trickier,” Dwight said.

  “My treat,” Linda said and they walked across the huge parking lot to the tavern. “Both the tricks and the Rainier.”

  “Just so you know, we have to do this more than once or twice for it to work,” Dwight said. “Are you up for it?”

  “You bet. I think we can even get Ann to help. She is tired of dealing with that little sick-o.”

  “I can’t wait to see her tomorrow when she sees that butt-load of return carts.”

  “I don’t work tomorrow, but I’ll call Ann and tell her what we did,” Linda said. “She’ll get a real kick out of it.”

  “Wait until I fill you in on my little ‘weed killer’ project for Mr. H.” Dwight started laughing. “I got a million of ‘em.” Dwight kept chuckling as they made their wa
y to the Triangle. “And then there’s the ol’ ‘Armor All’ trick.” That caused him to chuckle even more. As they neared the Triangle, Dwight took the opportunity to clutch her cheek causing her to jump.

  “Dwight, stop that.”

  “I’m just playing, Lindy.”

  What’s the Armor All trick?”

  Dwight pulled open the heavy wooden door and they walked into the tavern, scanned the room and found a table. He pulled out a chair and Linda took a seat.

  “What you do is spray Armor All down an aisle,” Dwight said taking a seat. “Better if you can do an entire department. It so goddamned slippery, it’s like walking on an oil spill on ice. Impossible to walk on, it’s invisible, and the best part, the floor wax has to be stripped to bare tile and re-sealed and re-waxed. Takes several days to correct. Nobody can walk down the aisle to shop. It’s a real pisser for management with the lost sales and all. I eventually quit doing that. Some guy fell and I felt real bad.

  “Well you should feel bad, Dwight, that’s terrible. That poor old man didn’t do anything to you.”

  “They had to call an ambulance. He sued the company for all his pain and suffering. I heard he really made out, stuck it to them for over a hundred grand. I still felt kind of bad. I only did that a few more times and decided maybe I should quit.

  “Well, I should hope so.”

  “I didn’t want anybody else falling. I just wanted them to stop shopping in that department. You have to admit, it was pretty fucking effective.”

  “I’m sure it was, Dwight. I’m glad you don’t do that anymore.”

  “And then there’s the ol’ feces incident.” He laughed even harder.

  “Why are you always talking about shit?” Linda asked.

  “Well aren’t you little Miss Upity,” Dwight said. “I’ll teach the bastards to reject my application. I’ll close the damn store down before I’m finished with ‘em … feces … shee-it.”

  “Half the time, I just don’t have a clue what you’re talking about Dwight,” Linda said. “But it’s a pretty good bet it will have something to do with shit.”