Revenge Fantasy

I sometimes worked night shift at Charter Foods for two reasons: it paid a dollar an hour more than base pay, and I could usually study between customers. All-night grocery stores are a gimmick, if you ask me; it sounds good to be open 24 hours, but few people actually want to buy their weekly meat and potatoes at 2 a.m. So I would sneak my English and Math assignments down to the checkout under my apron. I’m studying at community college to be a medical transcriptionist, but I had some General Studies prerequisites to get out of the way before fall.

Usually I could study, but not always. Some city ordinance made the store schedule a minimum of two employees at the front end at all times, as some kind of safety precaution. Of the cashiers who volunteered for the all-night shift, two were these crazy motormouths, one was a constant whiner, and two were okay.

So I was relieved to see one Friday that my co-cashier would be one of the okay ones. Genna was actually better than okay. She worked by day as a substitute teacher, and so she understood that I needed to study. Sometimes she’d even help out with the endless math worksheets. We also shared an interest in loud, depressive rock music. One time one of the carry-out guys showed me how to take over the p.a. system and play whatever music I wanted. So during night shift Genna and I cranked it up good and loud, and put on a bunch of Nine Inch Nails, Alice in Chains, Rob Zombie, Nirvana, etc. for half an hour before the supervisor caught on. We didn’t even get in any real trouble; not many people volunteer for night shift so they have to be nice to us.

The supervisor, naturally, was the other possible problem. Whoever was supervising was supposed to sit in a room back behind the service desk and count beans or something all night, but in reality that only took a couple hours. Most supervisors would then sit around watching TV or sleeping, but one, unfortunately, thought he was being conscientious by coming out and bothering the cashiers. That was Charles.

Even though he was just in his twenties, everyone was sure Charles was a Charter Foods lifer. He was always brown-nosing the managers, usually by hassling the rest of us. He’d tell you to do things one way, then yell at you for it the next time. He’d get you in trouble for some obscure infraction nobody ever heard of, and had gotten several people fired. Or if you couldn’t find something on the shelf he’d sit there and laugh at you. More like bray at you; the guy had this loud donkey laugh, or else there was his screeching hyena giggle. And he was butt-ugly. And he talked like Elmer Fudd.

At 10:01 I came flying down the stairs, a little late as usual.

“Danielle, yoah late!” I heard from the back room.

“Okay, Charles, sorry, I’ll just punch in now.” I scanned my badge and looked around for Genna at register 8. Genna’s always on time.

Charles had poked his head out. He giggled and gave me a playful shove. “Wegistah 8.” That’s another thing, he was always touching the female cashiers – especially blondes. I always wanted to report him, but it seemed like he always stayed just the right side of the line between “annoying” and “sexual harassment”. You could almost think he wasn’t so stupid after all.

I hurried over to Genna’s register and pulled out the bagging platform. “Hey girl, what’s up?”

“Hey Danielle.” Genna didn’t smile. She’s usually cheerful, so this was unusual. “I’ve got something to tell you. You’re ten to six, right?”

“Yeah, I’m night shift all through the weekend. I need to make some money. So tonight it’s you and me and him.” I put a sour twist on the last word.

“Ah yes, the creature. Come here, I’ve got to show you something.” She beckoned me over and indicated her apron pocket.

“What the fuck!” I gasped.

“Excuse me, can one of you please help me?” A little man in an old-fashioned hat was standing there clutching a store flyer, a dazed look on his face. “My wife told me to pick up some of this soda for $1.98 but I don’t see it. She saw it in the newspaper but you don’t have it in this flyer.” I told him we didn’t carry that kind of soda but he insisted his wife had seen it, and got all insulted when I suggested it might have been some other store’s ad. So we walked up and down the aisles for ten minutes. Then he had to go ask Genna, and that took a few more minutes. Finally he got all in a huff, and left a cart full of groceries behind as he stormed out of the store.

“Gonna be some night,” Genna deadpanned, wheeling the cart over to the service desk, where she called one of the stockers to put the stuff away.

When she came back I confronted her. “Okay, why do you have a toy gun in your apron? It is a toy, isn’t it?”

“No toy. It’s real all right. I’m going to kill Charles.”

“You… you’re joking.” Genna shook her head, making her gray curls swish back and forth. Her brown eyes always looked somewhat amused, but she wasn’t laughing.

“You can do one of three things: you can be my lookout and help, or you can call the police, or you can just stay out of the way.” I had no idea what to say, so she went on. “At midnight, the night stocking crew is going upstairs for an hour.”

“Nah, that can’t be. Those guys are so cool they don’t talk to anybody, not even each other. Even if there’s two of them on break at once, they sit on opposite sides of the room.”

“Usually yes. But tonight is Homer’s going-away party.” These guys all had fake names on their badges, they didn’t ever go by their real names at work. They get away with all kinds of stuff like that. “There’s even beer in the fridge. They should be up there at least an hour.”

“So what are you going to do, go behind the service desk and …”

“No. There are security cameras all over the place.” She gestured toward the one above the service desk. “But not in back by the loading dock. I’ll go back there at 12:30, which is when he takes the money back to the safe. Later I’ll just say I thought I heard something, if anyone sees I went back. I’ll shoot him and take some money so it’ll look like a robbery.”

“Are you sure you should be telling me this? I mean, this is serious. What if I go the ‘call the cops’ route?”

Genna relaxed fractionally, allowing just a crack of a smile. “I’ll deny the whole thing and say you’ve been under a lot of stress. I have a place to hide the money and the gun. It’s better for both of us if I don’t tell you where that is.”

“But why…”

“Hi girls! How’s my two favorite grocery store ladies tonight?” The woman we called Elvira was wheeling up her weekly basketful of goodies. Nobody knew her real name because she always paid in cash. Her black-polished nails flashed as she pulled items out of her cart: chocolate truffles, organic bubble bath, a pound of sour gummi worms, imported cheese. “Is it too late to buy Cognac?”

Genna switched back into sunny-friendly mode. “You know it is. No booze after 9:00, that’s the law. Sorry. Say, purple hair really suits you.” Genna and Elvira could chat like old buddies. “Hey Danielle, us two old hens can bag this stuff up. Why don’t you go see what Redbeard wants?”

“Oh… no!”

“Yep. Up at the service desk.” The service desk had been closed for a couple hours, but knowing this guy he’d stay there till morning. I had seen him go through the self-checkout, packing and repacking his groceries several times, indifferent to the mechanical voice yelping at him. I’d hoped this might mean that tonight he couldn’t complain that we were overcharging him, as part of some kind of plot. Naïve of me.

“You overcharged me for 4.5 ounces of Oolong tea! For once and for all, I’m calling the Bureau of Weights and Measures on this store!” By the time this all got sorted out it was 11:20, and finally the front end was quiet. Charles was staying in back with his money like a good boy. He’d let us do the dirty work with the customers if he could get away with it. I went back over by Genna.

“Genna, are you really going to – you know. I know he’s a horse’s ass, but middle-aged grocery clerks don’t just go around popping off supervisors.”

“He got Ben fired.”

“Oh.” For the first time I started to halfway believe this might really be happening. There had been rumors about Ben and Genna. “What happened?”

“Ben was taking some food from the deli upstairs for his break. Whoever was in deli gave him a few extra home-fry potatoes. He was eating someone from Loss Control came upstairs and told him to pay for the potatoes. He told them the deli was trying to get rid of the extras and gave them to him, but you know how Loss Control is. He’d already spent most of the money he had left on cigarettes and a soda, and they wouldn’t let him just give the potatoes back. So he got fired.”

“You’re… kidding?”

“Nope. And guess who it was who informed on him. I think he was worried the managers like Ben better than him, and you know it’s always the guys that get the promotions. He just sat there snickering while Ben got escorted out.”

“That sucks, but Genna, I’m not helping you. I can’t. I hate him too, but I can’t just…”

“Okay, okay. Can you just stay out of the way then?”

“I guess so.” We made plans that I’d open another register when she went on “break” at 12:25. But I was all messed up about this. I didn’t like Charles either, and I couldn’t believe some of the things he’d do to people, but you can’t just murder somebody like that. Besides, I was not at all sure this would go as planned.

A couple drunks and druggies stumbled through during the next hour. The night stockers commenced their party upstairs. Charles started bumping around in the back room. It was 12:20.

“This is it, Danielle.” Genna signed off the register. “You know, if guys like Charles can just get away with anything to climb the ladder or whatever, it’s just like the people who let Hitler get away with the things he did. All you would need to do is watch the stairs, and just page me if anyone comes down from the break room.”

I didn’t say anything. I just went over and opened a register, as far away as I could get. Genna watched me go, then scanned her badge and walked toward the back of the store. Charles rattled keys and money. The only group of customers in the store approached my register. But I had made up my mind: I had to call the police.

The customers, four guys, started loading the conveyor with their frozen pizza, chips, soda, the usual bachelor crap. “Excuse me a moment,” I said, and headed toward the phone at the service desk.

“Danielle!” I heard Charles’ sing-song teasing voice. “You’ve got customahs.” He was just coming out with the cash.

“Charles, I have to use the phone right now. It’s an emergency.”

“No. It. Isn’t,” he sang, smirking as he pulled the receiver out of my hand. “Get back to yoah wegistah. Now!” There was nothing I could do but go back. I figured I could take care of these customers until he was out of range, then go back for the telephone.

I rang up the groceries quickly and announced the total. The youngest of the group pulled out a checkbook. “Where do I write the amount on this?” he asked, his voice obviously inebriated. He was sort of wobbling back and forth, looking at the checkbook at an odd angle. As he discussed the matter with his friends, casually cussing all over the place, I looked over at the phone. I was going to rush over, but by this time some of the night guys had come downstairs, and one of them was using the phone. Apparently they couldn’t think of anything to say to each other for more than half an hour.

“No, put the date there, stupid. You sign it at the bottom.” His friend pointed out the right places to Mr. Wobbly. The guy looked like he was about to puke on the counter.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Those checks aren’t printed with your name. I can’t take a check like that. I’m sorry.”

The drunk reared up an fixed one beady reddish eye in my general direction. “But I use these checks all the time! I just used one here yesherday!”

That’s when I heard a shot from the back room. The night guys started running back there, except the one who was on the phone. He hastily hung up, then called 911.

“Oh no!” I started breathing all crazy. I didn’t know what to do.

“I tellya this check is good. Wanna see my fuggin i.d.? Look, here’s a deposit slip.” He dropped most of the contents of his wallet on the floor. “Oop.” I felt like screaming.

Then Genna strolled in from the direction of the front door, over to my bagging station, and said, “Paper or plastic?” My drunk was at this point having a loud discussion with his buddies, so I came over and whispered, “Did you…”

“Nah,” she said. “Once I got outside I started thinking it was unlikely that the only place in the store without a security camera was the safe. So I ran back to take a look, and sure enough there was one, it’s just a little one, probably the high quality kind that records the pictures, or maybe has a connection to some security company. So I just… Hey, what’s going on, anyway?”

She said that because, just then, Charles was swaggering to the front of the store, gun in hand. He was doing his hyena giggle and bragging “Yeah, I think I mighta winged him. Too bad he got away.” He noticed my customer service dilemma. “What’s the pwoblem heah?” As Charles okayed my customer’s dubious check, one of the stock guys explained to Genna and me that someone had been “hiding” in the back. Charles had assumed it was someone back there to steal money, though more likely it was just some homeless guy sleeping, otherwise I suppose Genna would have seen him a few minutes earlier. What no one had known was that Charles always carried a gun with him when he took the cash back to the safe. He’d fired it after the guy as he fled the store. By that time I guess Genna was off somewhere stashing her gun, because she told me later she didn’t hear anything.

Charles was obviously pleased with himself. “I bet I saved the stoah wotsa money. Wet’s see how they wike this at the Copowate Office!” He brayed jubilantly.

But in fact Corporate didn’t like it at all. Carrying a gun in the store is totally outside Charter Foods standard procedures. Charles got canned.

For all I know maybe there really was a robber. Maybe my ditzy customers were decoys, part of some plan. Plans… I guess it’s okay to make plans, but who knows how things really happen?


(word count: 2,683)