Taking Stock (13 page)

“Yes?” The raspy voice is the same one I spoke with on the phone.

“Ms. Rogers?”

“Yes?”

“My name’s Sheldon. I brought your groceries.”

“Oh.”

“Would you like me to bring them in?”

She shuffles backward.

I nudge the door open with my foot and carry the bags in. Felicity Rogers is an elderly woman with white wisps for hair. She leans heavily on a walker, and her eyes are rheumy. Her back is bent. Gravity has been dragging on her face and arms and legs for a long time.

I say, “Can I help you put these away?”

She moves backward again, deeper into her living room, which is also her kitchen, and her bedroom. It smells musty.

“Put them there.”

I carefully lay the groceries on the floor.

“Are you sure you don’t want any help?”

“Yes.”

I smile, and I back away. “Merry Christmas.”

She says nothing.

As I walk back to the cab, it begins to snow—big, fluffy flakes. For an instant, the driver and I make eye contact. But on the ride back to Spend Easy, we still don’t talk.

“Thank you,” I say once I’ve paid. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.”

I pedal hard to get home quick. The snow lands on my uncovered face, melting and running down my nose and cheeks in tiny rivulets. It tastes clean, and white.

And then it tastes salty.

Chapter Thirteen

The day after Boxing Day, Frank receives notice that on December 29th, the health inspector will be paying the store a ‘surprise visit’. Immediately, Spend Easy becomes a beehive of activity.

Gilbert and I are working the morning Frank finds out. He calls Ralph in to work on his day off, and Ralph calls in Paul and Casey.

“Inspections are a joke,” Paul says. “They don’t make anything safer for anyone. Last time we were getting ready for one, I found mouse shit on a box of cranberry sauce. I showed Frank, and he said, ‘It’s in cans, isn’t it? Wipe them off and put them out.’”

Ralph starts getting the warehouse in order, and sets Gilbert to working the overstock racks. Casey and Paul are tasked with fronting. Meanwhile, Frank double-times around the store, avoiding eye contact and barking orders. He gives me a series of undesirable chores, since he knows I’m the only one who’ll do them. He gets me to lift the grates out of Dairy’s bottom shelf and clean underneath—a cold stew of milk, eggs, and whatever else. Then I’m told to walk around outside, in the cold, and pick up any litter I see. After that he orders me to take a broom, go to Aisle One, lie on my stomach, and scoop out whatever shit I find underneath the shelves. This includes several rotten fruits and vegetables, a wristwatch, a dead rat, and a used condom.

And that was just Aisle One.

Gilbert, it seems, has acquitted himself admirably today. Walking downstairs from the employee washrooms, I find Ralph talking to him near the cardboard compactor. “I’m impressed with the turnaround you’ve made, Gilbert,” he’s saying. “You haven’t called in sick for almost a month, and you’ve become one of Grocery’s most valued employees. Do you think you’d be able to come back tomorrow and help us out again?”

“I’d be happy to,” Gilbert says. He sees me, and winks.

I’m working the next day, too, and I’m assigned more disgusting tasks. But it seems I’m not the only one suffering. After my first break, I come downstairs to find a Meat employee mopping up a puddle that’s seeped under the wall, from the Meat department into the warehouse. The puddle has been there since I started working. It’s rancid, and I’m glad someone’s finally cleaning it.

Hours later, he’s standing there again. Eric’s there too, yelling at him for slacking off: the puddle’s still there.

It isn’t the same puddle, though. I saw him mop it all up. There’s obviously a hole in the wall, or something. It’s not his fault.

He doesn’t say that, though. He just stands there, shoulders hunched, eyes on the floor, while Eric towers over him and screams.

Later, I run into the guy in the warehouse—Theo’s his name—and I ask him what it’s like, working for Eric. He reacts to my question the same way he reacted to Eric.

“You don’t have to put up with him shouting at you like that, you know,” I say. “It’s abuse.”

“What do you care, vegan?”

I look up. Eric is standing at the top of the stairs that lead to the washrooms and the break room, staring down at us.

I don’t answer him. Theo quickly leaves the warehouse, and Eric stands glaring at me until I leave, too.

*

I’m not scheduled to work the day of the inspection, and neither is Gilbert. I know this because he calls and invites me to hang out.

“Sure,” I say. “I can walk to your place. Where do you live?”

“Actually,” he says, “my mother’s here, and I don’t think I can stand her for another minute. Can we hang out at your place?”

“Sure.”

When he arrives, I offer him a choice of coffee and water, which is all I have. He chooses coffee, and sits on the left side of my couch drinking it. I sit on the right—the couch is the only place to sit. Gilbert’s the first guest I’ve ever had here.

He isn’t saying anything.

I clear my throat. “Is your Mom visiting from out of town, or something?”

“Nope. She had a fight with Dad, so she’s crashing at my apartment indefinitely. It’s not the first time. Actually, she recently bought a bed for my spare room, for such occasions.”

“Oh. Well, I hope they work it out.”

He doesn’t answer. He bends over to scratch Marcus Brutus, who’s rubbing against his ankle. Gilbert places a hand under his belly.

“He doesn’t like being picked up,” I say.

He scoops Marcus Brutus into his lap, where he settles down and starts purring.

“I take it he doesn’t let you do this,” Gilbert said.

“I’d probably be bleeding by now.”

He puts Marcus Brutus back on the floor. “I need to smoke a joint. Can I do it in your shed? You probably don’t want me smoking in your apartment.”

“Uh, okay. I’ll get you the key.”

Five minutes later, he’s still out in the shed. I pour myself another coffee and bring it back to the living room, turning on the TV and flicking randomly through the channels. After 20 minutes, I put on my shoes and go out.

When I open the shed door, I find him peering out the only window.

“How was the joint?” I say.

“Fine.”

“Must have been a big one. You’ve been out here for almost a half hour.”

I join him at the window. It doesn’t offer much of a view, other than Sam’s deck. “What are you looking at?”

“Have you seen Frank go into the upstairs apartment lately?”

“No.”

“And you’re sure it was him, the first time?”

“Pretty sure.”

He looks out the window again. “Well. I gotta go. I promised Mom I’d bring her dinner.”

He walks out to his Hummer, leaving me alone in the shed with the smell of weed. My eyes fall on the stool in the corner.

*

On New Year’s Eve, I come in for my shift to find Gilbert in the warehouse, playing with the label maker that’s usually sitting on Ralph’s desk. But Gilbert isn’t scheduled to work tonight. I’m supposed to be working with Donovan, on the Frozen order.

“Why are you here?” I say.

“Just putting in some overtime. For the good of Spend Easy.”

He presses a button, and the label maker starts printing. I walk over and read it: “HELP! I’M TRAPPED INSIDE A LABEL MAKER!”

“Pretty hilarious. Are they paying you for your services?”

“No, no. This is pro bono. Come with me.”

We leave the warehouse and turn right, walking past the aisles, past Meat. We end up outside the customer restroom. Gilbert glances toward Produce. There’s no one over there.

He untucks his shirt, and out drops a piece of paper, which he’d apparently been keeping next to his stomach. He takes a roll of tape from his pocket and posts the paper on the bathroom door. It reads, “THIS BATHROOM IS NO LONGER FUNCTIONING. IF I HAD THE AUTHORITY AND THE RESOURCES, IT WOULD BE FIXED IMMEDIATELY. BUT UNLIKE MY SUPERIORS, I HAVE YOUR CONVENIENCE IN MIND—NOT YOUR MONEY.”

Gilbert studies it for a moment, nods, and walks back toward the warehouse.

“Gilbert,” I whisper. “What are you doing?”

“I’ve been thinking. So far, we’ve only reacted to Frank. I think it’s time to be proactive.”

“He’ll know you did that.”

“No he won’t. The cameras don’t point at the customer restroom. Anyone could have taped that sign there. And I’ll look less suspicious than everyone else, because the recording will show me going there with Sheldon Mason—Grocery’s star employee.”

He turns down Aisle One, and I follow him. “What happened to taking the high road?” I say.

He shrugs. “I took a few bong rips before I came in. Does that count?”

There’s an abandoned shopping cart sitting next to the drain cleaners. Gilbert grabs a bottle of Vaseline and tosses it in. Then he walks to his cart, which is waiting nearby, and takes a box from it. He dumps its contents into the shopping cart—numerous packages of condoms.

“Perhaps this cart belongs to a housewife,” he says, “whose husband just got a vasectomy. Maybe her husband will see the stuff I tossed in, and ask her why she needs all these condoms. That should make for an interesting New Year’s!”

I find Donovan in the walk-in freezer, loading up his cart. “Have you seen what Gilbert’s doing?” I say.

“Yeah. He threw five bags of chips into some fat guy’s cart while he wasn’t looking, and said that should get him off the stupid diet he’s probably on.”

“I don’t get it. He tells everyone we need to work harder, to show Frank and Jack we’re better than them. And now he starts doing shit like this.”

“Gilbert’s been working here a long time, Sheldon.”

“Gilbert has gone insane, Donovan.”

I go searching for Gilbert again, and find him in Aisle Three. He’s removing the price tags for the Remembering brand salad dressings and replacing them with new tags, which he’s taking from his pocket.

“What are you doing now?”

“Flexing my creativity. Check this out. They rebranded salad dressings to make customers feel worldly when they buy them. Italian dressing is now ‘Remembering Venice’. Instead of Ranch, it’s ‘Remembering Santa Barbara’. So I figure, if customers can ‘remember’ places they’ve never been, why can’t they recall an event they never experienced?” He passes me a handful of his replacement tags.

“Remembering Auschwitz,” one reads. “Remembering Guantanamo Bay”. “Remembering Tiananmen Square”.

“I printed them at home. I think they’re going to be really popular.”

“Gilbert, seriously. Why? When I started working here, you were the slackest person I’ve ever met. Then you became a workhorse. And now this.”

“Let’s change the subject. My girlfriend’s having a New Year’s party tonight. Want to come?”

“No. I want to know why you’re doing this.”

“If you come to the party, I’ll tell you.”

I hesitate. “I’ll have to go home and change after work.”

“Pick you up at 11, then.”

Chapter Fourteen

There are only five people at the party when we get there, sitting around the living room and drinking. “Gilbert, thank God you’re here,” says a girl who’s sitting on the floor. “We’re lacking men.”

There is, in fact, already a guy, straddling a footstool near the coffee table. He gets up and extends his hand. “Gilbert Ryan! God, I haven’t seen you since high school! What are you doing all the time?”

Gilbert shakes his hand. “Masturbating. Vigorously.”

The guy nods with his mouth open, withdraws his hand, returns to the footstool. Discreetly, he wipes his palm against the fabric.

“Who’s your friend, Gilbert?” says the girl on the floor.

“This is Sheldon. He plans to be kind of a big deal.”

She holds up her drink. “Hail Sheldon, future big deal.”

“No autographs,” I say.

A toilet flushes, and a door opens down a hallway. A girl emerges and walks up behind Gilbert, wrapping both arms around his chest. “Hey, babe.” She’s makeup-commercial beautiful.

“Hi, Kerrin.”

She glances around the room. “We have three guys now. Let’s play Spin the Bottle.”

“I’m not playing Spin the Bottle,” I say. “What is this,
Garden State
?”

“Well, we just ate all this fucking X,” Kerrin says, “what the hell else are we supposed to do?”

“We’re not playing Spin the Bottle,” Gilbert says. “Give me some ecstasy.”

One of the girls on the couch goes to get him some, and I steal her spot. “It’s almost the new year,” I say. “Are we doing a countdown?”

The head of the girl I’m sitting next to flops sideways so she can see me. “Countdowns are so 2012.”

“Let’s play a drinking game,” Kerrin says. She looks at Gilbert.

“Whatever.”

She produces a deck of cards and assigns each one a meaning. If you draw an Ace, everyone drinks. If you draw a 5, you take five sips. A 7 means you get to make up a rule.

Gilbert makes it a rule that in order to speak, you have to stand up. After that, I don’t say much. I can’t think of anything worth standing up for.

More people start showing up, and by 1 AM the house is full. The drinking game is over, but I’m still sitting on the couch. There are people standing over me and talking, cuddling on the couch beside me, watching TV. Maybe if I’d taken some ecstasy, time wouldn’t be crawling the way it is right now.

The girl who was sitting on the floor earlier comes over. She has black hair, which she brushes back over her ear as she sits. She tucks her legs under her. “Hey there, Mr. Big Deal.”

“I can’t keep up a conversation for shit, so I wouldn’t bother.”

She raises her eyebrows, and laughs. “Come on. It’s easy. Example: what do you do?”

“Stock shelves at a grocery store.”

“With Gilbert?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“This is your idea of a conversation? Small talk?”

“That wasn’t small talk.” She rests a hand on my leg. “I’m genuinely interested.”

I stare at her. She removes her hand.

“You didn’t have any X, did you?”

“No,” I say.

“Will you have some?”

“No, thanks.”

She glances sideways, at the TV. “All right, then.” She stands up and leaves the room.

I go to the kitchen, where Gilbert’s talking to the girl who just asked if I’d taken ecstasy. When she notices me, she leaves the room.

“She thinks you’re gay,” Gilbert says.

“What? Why?”

“She said you just sat there while she flirted with you.”

“Oh.”

“What’s wrong with you? She’s Italian. And hot.”

“She’s also high.”

“So?”

I take a beer from the fridge and twist the cap, producing a slow hiss. “What’s her name?”

“Capriana.”

Kerrin comes into the kitchen and wraps herself around Gilbert again. She kisses him until he pushes her away.

“Katie wants to buy some pot,” she says.

Gilbert glances at me, and then glares at Kerrin. “How does Katie know I sell it?”

“She doesn’t. I told her an anonymous friend of mine does.”

“An anonymous friend who’s obviously here at this party. So you’ve narrowed the possibilities a bit.”

“Jesus, Gilbert, you’re so uptight about it.”

“Katie’s not getting any pot.”

Kerrin frowns. “Your jeans are ripped, you know.”

“So are yours.”

“Mine were bought this way. Yours ripped on their own, and you need a new pair.” She walks away.

I clear my throat. “You sell weed?”

He lowers his voice. “I sell it to half of Spend Easy. I even sell to one of the managers. But if you tell anyone—”

“Calm down, Gilbert. I’m not going to tell anyone. Christ.”

“Sheldon Mason!” a guy says as he enters the kitchen. “Long time no speak.” He walks over, holding a red plastic cup. He’s tall—taller than Gilbert—with straight black hair. “You remember me, right?”

I take a swig of beer. “Hi, Sean.”

“This is the last place I’d expect to see you. Is that beer you’re drinking?”

“Who are you?” Gilbert says.

“I’m the only friend Sheldon had in high school.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep. Sheldon was always too good for everybody. He never drank, never toked, barely spoke to anyone. Wrote a lot, though. How’s that going, by the way, Sheldon? Have you written the story yet where the main character’s only friend steals the girl he loves? I’d read that.”

“I haven’t, actually. Doubt it would be very interesting.”

“Well in case you do, I have a plot twist for you. I broke up with Cassandra two months after graduation—but that doesn’t mean we stopped having sex. She seemed reluctant to let that part of our relationship go. We got back together later, but—”

“What’s your point?”

“Come on, Sheldon. Consider the irony. For a while there, the love of your life was basically my fuck buddy.”

I’ve never hit anyone, but Sean comes close to being my first. Before I can move, Gilbert plucks the red cup out of Sean’s hand and splashes beer in his face.

Sean backs up, eyes wide, beer dripping onto his shirt. “Why’d you do that?”

“Wanted to see what would happen.” Gilbert studies Sean for a few seconds. Sean glares back. Gilbert laughs. “That’s what I thought.” He looks at me. “Game of pool, Sheldon? Kerrin has a table downstairs.”

“Sure.”

As we walk away, Sean shouts, “Hey, bite me!”

Downstairs, Gilbert grabs a pool stick and rolls it on the table. He shakes his head, choosing another. After he finds two straight sticks, he chalks the tips and passes me one.

“People didn’t like me much in high school,” I say.

“Who gives a fuck?” He racks up the balls. “Wanna break?”

“Okay.”

Gilbert takes off his ring and places it on a windowsill. I mess up the break, so he returns the cue ball to its original position, pulls his stick back, and thrusts. The balls scatter, the 14 falling into a corner pocket. “Guess I’m high,” he says.

The next ball he sinks is the 13, leaving him a clear path to the 9. A tap of the cue, and it spins slowly to a side pocket, tumbling in with a gentle
thud
. Now the cue ball is trapped behind three of mine, and it seems Gilbert’s turn must end. But it doesn’t. He jabs downward with his stick, the white ball hopping over the 7 to push the 12 into a pocket. A couple girls leaning against the nearby bar have stopped talking to watch the game.

Silently, without looking at me or anyone else, Gilbert sinks his remaining balls, leaving only the 8. It sits at one end of the table, and the cue ball sits at the other. The path between them is clear of obstacles, but the angle seems impossible.

He looks up with a small smile and points at the 8. “That’s you.” He walks around the table, tracing his finger along the fabric, from the 8 to a corner pocket. “This is your life.” He points down the hole. “That’s your grave.” He walks back to the cue ball, pulls back his stick, and drives it forward. There’s a streak of white, and then a streak of black.

The girls clap.

I follow him through a door, through a storage area, and through another door, which leads to a stairwell outside. He takes a joint from his pocket, and a lighter. “My uncle lives in the apartment above yours,” he says.

“Sam?”

“Sam Ryan, yeah. He came out on his deck while I was in your shed.”

“You didn’t know he lived there?”

“He hasn’t spoken to my family in years.” He holds out the joint. “Want some of this?”

I wave it away. “Tell me why you were trying to cause trouble at the store tonight.”

“Not now.”

“You said you’d tell me if I came here.”

“I didn’t say I’d tell you tonight.”

“Why not?”

“Because right now, your top priority should be drinking, and talking to Capriana. By the way—there’s a guest room you can crash in. Kerrin doesn’t care.”

I consider pressing it, but there’s no point. “Thanks.”

I return to the kitchen, chug two beer, grab a third, and go looking for Capriana. I find her talking to some guy wearing a beret. “Excuse me, Charles,” she says, and leads me by the hand back to the couch. “Did you take some X?” she whispers, smiling. Her pupils are enormous.

“No. But you’re very pretty.”

Still smiling, she slowly licks her lips.

We kiss, and immediately there’s tongue. It seems like a tasteful amount. I try not to let on how new this is for me.

“Kerrin has a spare room,” she whispers in my ear. She takes my hand and leads me there, locking the door behind us.

We lie on the bed in our clothes for a long time, feeling the contours of each other’s bodies through the fabric. I’m wearing a silk shirt, something Mom bought me years ago, and Capriana seems to enjoy running her palms along it. I want to start undressing her, but my instincts tell me to continue following cues. She smells of coconut.

I reach under her blouse to cup one of her breasts, squeezing and kneading it as I kiss her. At first she responds by moaning softly, but now she lays a hand on my elbow. “Not so hard,” she whispers.

“Sorry.”

Having to apologize during foreplay might not be a good omen, but she starts undoing my belt, so I don’t worry about it so much. Then I’m inside her mouth, and I know we’re going to have a problem.

I try to think about something else. Stocking shelves. Typing. Reading a book.

The sensation intensifies, and I don’t know what Capriana expects of me right now. Is this meant to be a segue into intercourse? Does she assume I can last that long?

Think about anything else. Baseball. Rock climbing.

Getting smashed in the face with a line drive by my little league coach. Nearly freezing to death in Spend Easy’s walk-in freezer.

It’s too late.

Capriana is staring up at me, eyebrows raised. It’s been maybe 15 seconds.

“A little warning might have been nice,” she says.

“I’m sorry.”

I don’t know if I’m supposed to return the favour, now. I mean, that seems right, but I would have no clue what I’m doing. There have to be how-to guides for this online, and I sure wish I’d read one. I feel like I’m about to write an exam for which I had no advance notice.

But she doesn’t seem to expect me to reciprocate. She comes up for a kiss instead. I’m not eager to find out what I taste like, but I feel awful, so I don’t pull away. Thankfully, we’re easier on the tongue this time.

Slowly, we work our way out of our clothes. Soon, I’m ready to go again. She takes a condom from her back pocket, tears it open, and gently rolls it on.

She lays back on the bed, maintaining eye contact. She’s perfect—her eyes, her skin, her breasts, her stomach. I can’t think of a single thing that would make her more beautiful.

Her expression isn’t quite bored, but…she must think I’m pathetic.

I ease myself on top of her. She helps me enter.

It’s hopeless. I ejaculate after 30 seconds.

She looks up at me. “Did you—?”

“Uh—”

She rolls her eyes. “There are more condoms in my jeans.”

My face is burning, and I feel like I’m about to cry. I wish I was just about anywhere else. I wish I’d never let Gilbert talk me into coming here.

“I’m sorry,” I say, struggling to keep my voice level. “Let’s stop. I should—”

“If you go out there now, everyone will know what happened.” She cups my chin in her hand. “This is your first time, right? I’m going to be awake all night, and there are more condoms. Let’s keep trying. It will be good for you.”

My eyes are on the floor, and I’m anything but turned on, now.

But she’s right.