Happy Days Down at the General Store
About three weeks after I lost the love of my life, I found a job at the local general store. I needed something close by, within walking distance if I must; unfortunately it’s the only store in town with certain goods. Sure you have the grocer, and the post office, but my store had cheaper and more varied products.
It was meant to be a temporary job while I made my way through college in the next city over. Getting a job in the city would have been ideal, but it was quite a drive. So I stepped up and became a clerk at my little general store, learning how to navigate the register, keeping shelves stocked with the array of stuffs that passed through this small town. Little by little, my shyness went away, I became more familiar with my customers, and my tasks became routine time killers, procedure overlapping into the second nature.
The biggest drawback of the job was the five and a half hour span which allotted far more thinking capacity than I was comfortable with. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not dumb. My mind begins to wander, fleeing from the abysmal dreariness of the working man, drifting through space to land on her. I don’t like thinking of her. I still love her. And every time I revisit her inside my head, the painful realization sets in that we are no more: it is she and I, but I am no longer me without her. It’s hard to focus whenever someone else is beating at the inside of your skull.
Days turned into weeks, and weeks crawled into months, not a single moment gone by without her on my mind, yet still not a word from her. Though I hid it well, every smile, every conversation, and every shift was fake. I wouldn’t keep my job for very long if I’d let my true self reflect outwards for others to see. Somehow I pulled it off though. But without fail, every time the bell rang on that damned door, I nervously looked up, anxious, scared even, yet hopeful to see her lovely face. In my heart though, I knew that day would never come. It’s a small town, but she would do everything she could to avoid a confrontation with me. She was the kind of person who cut things loose from her life and never looked back to see them hanging on for dear life off the edge of a cliff.
Each day that passed, hope began to fade just a little more as my confidence in the job increased. I began to develop a “stage persona”; all of my tiny insecurities swept under the rug as my dull eyes hid behind the façade of a well-mannered and charming salesclerk.
My manager acknowledged I was a hard worker. I didn’t generate personal complaints from customers, I was fast and efficient in my work, and I wasn’t lazy. He was an awkward man though, and forming a good work relationship with him took some time, but it eventually began to take root. However, he never actually understood what was going on inside my head, though he tried. He’d always
ask why I was so tired, as I was “a young man with all the time and energy in the world.” Despite my best efforts to explain, it just passed over his head. I was a young man with a wounded heart; it takes more than prescriptions and band aids to heal that, sir.
After about six months of working in the store, I was tending
the register, ushering the slow tide of elderly and impoverished customers milling about the place, my lips turned upwards at the edges, a slight crease in the middle, just large enough to part them and expose my teeth. The plastic bags rustled against my fingertips as I placed the random groceries within, making slight mental notes whenever I saw something I myself might buy. Amidst all the noises circulating around me, I still heard the chime of the bell as the door swung open, a fresh gust of wind whistling in harmony with the beeps of the cash drawer. Peering up, I saw a man older than me, but still in his youthful prime. My heart skipped a beat as my eyes fell to the figure of the woman holding his hand, and I realized it was her.
All the chaos and noise of retail blurred out of focus, becoming shapeless figures around me, like a stage play with actors dancing in the darkness to accentuate the main players motionless in the spotlight. But then the horror of what I was seeing hit me. She was here. After almost seven whole months, my first contact with her was the sight of another man in her company. Anger and sadness fought savagely for dominance, my brow furrowed with intense concentration and pain; I couldn’t afford to lose professionalism, but it was difficult to stay calm.
Then the world was set in fast forward. They entered and disappeared into the aisles, never noticing me at the front, and within minutes, my line diminished down to two people, and then there were none. I was trapped inside, alone with the two of them, my manager shut inside his office.
My heart racing, I paced a short, methodical circle behind my counter, anxiously waiting for the moment they would approach
the front, that unavoidable second when her face met with mine,
and she realized it was me behind the register. If she had known I worked here, I’d wager she would have waited in the car, or snuck out when I wasn’t looking so that she didn’t have to deal with that God awful awkward march to the front. I drummed my fingers on the counter: a gesture that usually meant I was aggravated or unusually nervous. I suppose in this instance it meant both. I knew I had other things I could be doing, but I didn’t want to risk running into them somewhere within the store, and considering the size, it was all too likely. I just wanted to position myself where I was and get it over with.
Time dragged on with prolonged gravity, each moment pressing down on me harder than the one before, my shoulders tense, with the blades developing an uncomfortable ache at the center. I paused my drumming to rub out the soreness. It didn’t work. I resumed the rhythm of my fingertips pounding away at the wooden countertop, pausing to trace an interesting shape etched into the grain from years of use. Growing bored of the exercise, I looked up and realized they were on their way towards me, conversing in close, hushed voices.
I noticed her cheeks looked a little flushed, either with excitement
or shame; hard to tell. Upon their arrival, they looked up from their mutterings, and I received two simultaneous, completely different reactions. His was of polite indifference, the kind you paid towards anyone you would meet on the street; he was just there for a purpose and didn’t have a care in the world. Her reaction, however, was of silent horror and recognition: a look that pierced me mercilessly in the gut, leaving an empty feeling tinged with icy prickles. The flushed look deepened into a gushing rosy color that spread throughout her features. He was oblivious to her changed demeanor, as she was standing just a tiny bit behind on his left. Not a detail escaped my watchful eyes.
Clearing his throat, speaking with absolutely no guilt or hesitation, he asked “Sir, where are the condoms? We were looking around the place and couldn’t find them anywhere...maybe you can help us?”
The ice that prickled the void in my stomach intensified into blades of steel, shredding my insides into tiny tatters of flesh. Her face was now full on crimson, her eyes shuffling the floor, following the motion of her feet. Once, twice, I attempted to speak, but the words shriveled against my throat, refusing to flow into coherent sounds. Abandoning all attempts at speech, I simply nodded my head, reached beneath the counter, and slowly starting stacking different boxes of condoms on the counter, arranging them in a tight semi-circle. The knot in my throat grew with every second as he stood there, taking his sweet time perusing the contraceptives. Finally, he settled on the spermicidal.
I nodded and replaced the boxes underneath the counter, avoiding eye contact, and then looked up to see that he had his arm wrapped around her; it was only too obvious what was on his mind. He must have finally noticed how uncomfortable she was; with a chuckle, he nudged her and said, “Oh c’mon. Don’t be so embarrassed; people come through here all the time buying stuff like this. I’m sure he’s used to it by now. Right?” It took me a moment to realize he had directed his last statement towards me. I wanted to wring his throat and call it a day. I acknowledged him with the slightest of nods, then rang up the devil’s latex, tossing it quickly into a bag, and waited for him to fumble with his wallet and thumb out the cash. All the while, still holding her. He laid the money on the counter, then returned to his fumbling; I swept it up, punched in the numbers, divvied up the money between the slots in the drawer, and presented him with his change with a curt smile. Professionalism. He returned the smile, grabbed his bag, and turned toward the door, positioning her right alongside him, still underneath his arm. Her head was tilted down, as if she couldn’t bear the thought of looking me into the eyes and admitting to what she was about to do; never once did she look back. I turned myself around in an attempt to steady the beating of my heart, to push back the nausea. The doorbell announced their departure, and all was silent once more.
***
Weeks later I had fallen back into routine, the store once again eating away at the little amounts of social time I had accrued. It had been a long time before I was able to push that day from my mind; even at night, I was plagued with nightmarish thoughts, unable to reign in my imagination against all the little...violations he was likely committing. Yet eventually the mind numbing pain receded into the darkest recesses of my consciousness, while all the physical duties of life pressed on. School was almost over, and soon I’d be working many more hours at the store. Yay. But it really is hard to argue with money when it so lovingly offers to give you food and all the awesome things one can hope for. So I worked, on and on until days blended together with mediocrity and time no longer existed within the atmosphere of the store.
On a day when the place was bustling with business, he came back to the store. Again, there was a long line of customers, but instead of losing himself in the crowd, he walked directly to the back of the line and waited. And I waited. Waited to see what he was doing here, especially without her wrapped in his arms. With each scan of an item, each cash exchange, he grew closer and closer, his face unreadable as he stood there, oblivious to all around him. At
one point I saw him glance down at his phone, a text breaking his unfocused gaze, and faintly smile. But then the moment passed, and he was in the clouds once more. The overbearing silence around him was killing me. I wanted him out of the store as fast as possible. And then he was next. Gathering my wits, I cleared my throat, and asked if I could help him. He looked surprised to hear me speak, then all too casually, he replied, “Yessir, I need two pregnancy tests please.” A giant, invisible hammer struck me in the chest, knocking out my breath, and then resumed its battering over the rest of my body, making my knees shake, pounding against my temples, the tension in my shoulders magnified to an unbearable degree. Grabbing the counter for support, I sank down to the floor, partially in reaction to his request, and partly to find the tests hidden away in a forgotten corner of the space underneath my counter. Now it was my turn
to fumble. My fingers, slick with sweat, were unable to grab the rectangular box in a firm grip without dropping it. Wiping my palms on my jeans, I tried again, and finally managed to sort of drop them on the countertop. The rest of it was a blur. Somehow I had managed to work past the next few seconds without any mistakes, because only the sound of the bell brought me to the realization that he was gone, and that I was left with a store full of customers, none of whom would realize the weight of what had just transgressed.
***
School ended. Summer was here and I was able to concentrate all my efforts on work. No homework, no papers due...just unrelenting work. Months went by before I ever even saw him again. He came in a few times, buying random things, mostly sweets or beef jerky, the occasional pickle, and that was all. No more condoms or tests. He regarded me with trained indifference, just as so many other random customers had. It occurred to me that she hadn’t told him anything of our past. If she had, he wouldn’t have been so quick to come in so often. Nor would he have been so casual. I worked hard to treat him nicely, as he did nothing but the same for me. It was just difficult to be in the same room with him, much less have to serve him. But for the sake of the money, I persevered.
Never once did I see her come in the store. Now that she knew where I was, and I knew what she was doing, the silence commenced, and she avoided my little shop. But she didn’t seem to mind sending him. A few times I had thought to myself, perhaps they aren’t even together any more...but then that was dashed out the window when he called her one day while in line, asking her, by name, if there was anything else they needed, reciting off a list in his hand of all the things she had written down. So much for that.
I had pretty much given up, resigning myself to the notion that I would be seeing a lot more of him in the store than I was ok with, and I just started to ignore his presence. But then one day he came in, and it was different. He didn’t linger around the food section, nor did he buy himself a drink. He went to the back of the store, out of my line of sight. I didn’t put much thought into it. At some point my manager came out of his office to talk to me about some new policy that was about to start up at the store. We were in the middle of discussing the new rules when he stopped midsentence: “Real quick, help this guy, and then we’ll finish talking about it.” I turned around and saw him standing at the counter. With diapers. Newborn diapers. The walls of the store collapsed around me, cutting off my airflow; I could tell they weren’t for a friend or family member. He had that paternal sense of pride about him. And now it all made sense: the frequent visits for random food had been for her. Because she was pregnant. I could taste a faint hint of bile on my tongue.
He shifted his stance, unable to keep still for long. My manager smiled in recognition of pre-baby jitters, having children of his own. But I couldn’t seem to move. After all this time, after all the love I had shared with her, I was standing behind the counter, waiting to check out the man who had knocked her up. The thought disgusted me.
I was just about to reach for the diapers, when he said with a huge, warm smile, “My fiancé and I are expecting.” The handgun scanner fell from my grasp. And I walked away, out of the store, never to look back again.