Taking Stock

by Scott Bartlett

  “So,” I say. “How long have you been working here?”

  “What?”

  “How long—”

  “I’m not interested in making small talk with you.”

  We walk to Aisle One. Gilbert takes a box of plastic bags near the back of the shelf and slides it to the front. “Fronting,” he says. He places a second box behind it, and then stacks another atop each one. “For the first three months, every rookie fronts. Nothing else. Aisles One through Five, Dairy, and the freezers. It all gets fronted. Makes the shelves look neat and full—for a time. But as you front, the customers will slowly pick apart your work behind you. Usually, by the time you get to Aisle Five, Aisle One will look like you never touched it.”

  I reach into the shelf and bring a box to the front. Then, another. I create a wall like Gilbert’s—two high and two deep. “This doesn’t seem so bad.”

  “Sure thing, Sisyphus.” He walks away.

  I grab another box.

  I finish the plastic bags and start on dish detergents. After those, scrub pads. Then light bulbs—incandescent and fluorescent. Scented candles. Air fresheners. Household cleaners. I stand back and study my work: a solid wall of product. Tidy. Sort of calming, actually.

  A woman pauses to my left, takes two boxes of plastic bags, and drops them into her cart.

  There’s a hole in my wall.

  I dig for two more boxes.

  The assistant manager of Produce drops by while I’m fronting dryer sheets. He’s skinny, with curly red hair that sticks out from underneath a black baseball cap. “I’m Merridan,” he says. “Jack Merridan. I’ve been working here since the store first opened, eight years ago.”

  Jack tells me Spend Easy has a theft problem, and Frank is certain the culprits work in Grocery. He’s asked Jack to discreetly investigate the matter. Jack wants me to help—to let him know if I catch anyone taking stock without paying for it. My cooperation will be rewarded. Raises, promotions, hours tailored to my liking. All I have to do is snitch.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Sorry?”

  “This is my first day—it feels a little early to get involved in, um, politics.”

  “Are you planning to steal food, too, then?”

  “No. I’m just not comfortable spying on people.”

  “Okay. I’ll find someone else to do it. And I’ll tell him to keep an eye on you.”

  “I’m no thief.”

  “I recommend you keep all your receipts. You may be asked to produce them at any time.” He maintains eye contact for another few seconds, then looks down. “Your forearms are skinny, like a T-rex’s.”

  He faces the front of the store, puts his hands in his pockets, and walks away.

  Jack’s threats don’t scare me.

  What scares me is that Spend Easy is my first taste of what’s commonly referred to as the ‘real world’, and so far the real world reminds me of high school. I didn’t do so well in high school. My best memories are of the times I managed to make myself invisible. I graduated friendless. Soon after, my Mom died.

  Two years after that, I searched the internet for how to tie a noose.

  *

  Gilbert returns as I’m fronting the last section in Aisle One, his hair shorter.

  “What happened to your hair?” I say.

  “I got a haircut. You’re still fronting Aisle One?”

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” someone calls from the other end of the aisle. He’s a tall, athletic-looking guy wearing a Spend Easy shirt. He nods at Gilbert. “Nice haircut.”

  “Hey, fat-ass. Meet the rookie.”

  “Hi,” he says. “I’m Paul.”

  Gilbert heads toward the warehouse, and I follow Paul to Aisle Two, which affords me the opportunity to evaluate Gilbert’s claim regarding his ass. It’s true: despite an otherwise muscular frame, Paul’s ass is enormous. We begin fronting the canned vegetables.

  “Are employees normally allowed to go for haircuts during work?” I ask.

  “Only employees named Gilbert.”

  “Why?”

  Paul shrugs. “He just gets away with stuff.”

  Fronting goes much quicker, with two. Paul tells me I’m being too meticulous—the product doesn’t need to be lined up perfectly.

  “Good word,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Meticulous—that’s a good word.”

  “Thanks.”

  It turns out I know someone who works here: Ernie, a guy I went to high school with. He’s Gilbert’s ‘Ernest’, I guess. He walks past as we’re fronting dog food.

  “Hey, Paul,” he says. “I’m just popping in to check the schedule.”

  “Okay.”

  Ernie makes it to the end of Aisle Two, and then he turns around and stares at me. “Holy shit.”

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “Sheldon?” he says. “Sheldon Mason?”

  “Yeah.”

  He rushes back to us, hand thrust forward. “Holy shit! I haven’t seen you in like three years! What have you been doing all this time?”

  “Nothing.”

  He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “No, really—what have you been doing?”

  “Really. Nothing.”

  Whereas most people ignored or ridiculed me in high school, Ernie constantly pestered me to come hang out with him at his house. I learned to have an excuse prepared at all times. I felt bad, but the truth is, I think he’s disgusting. His house smells bad, and his personality makes me nauseous. After I graduated I started using a different email account, and whenever Ernie called, Mom told him I wasn’t home.

  “Are you still writing?” Ernie says.

  “No.”

  “Oh. Right on. Well, I’d better go, then.”

  “All right. See you.”

  “Hey—we should hang out some time.”

  “Uh. Okay.”

  Once Ernie’s gone, Paul glances at me. “Is he a friend of yours?” His face is blank, and his tone is neutral, but I sense there’s some silent judgment being passed. Of course there is.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I guess.”

  He nods. “I’m glad. He needed one, here.”

  Paul’s pocket emits a brief, 8-bit melody. He takes out his phone and starts texting. “Not supposed to be doing this,” he says.

  “Was that the 1up sound, from Mario?”

  “It was indeed.” He puts away his phone. “So, you’re a writer?”

  “Used to be.”

  “Anything published?”

  “No.”

  “What did you write?”

  “Fiction.”

  “Cool. I write a blog. About video games.”

  “Good for you.”

  “I’ve been thinking about trying a novel. This place is actually pretty inspiring.”

  For some reason, this really irritates me.

  “What, you mean Spend Easy?”

  “Maybe. I think it could be good.”

  “What would the conflict be?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “The characters need to want something. What would they want? Food?”

  “I don’t really know.”

  I replace a bag of dog treats and stop fronting. “Can I take my break now?”

  “Sure, man.”

  Paul leads me into the warehouse, where a punch clock hangs on the wall near the entrance, flanked by two racks filled with punch cards. He searches them.

  “Looks like you don’t have one of these yet. Oh well. Just come back in 15.”

  “Fine.” I start to leave.

  “Hey—Sheldon, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you recommend some good writing books?”

  “Listen, Paul, writing fiction is nothing like blogging.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “It takes years of practice. Writing every day. You need stamina, especially when it comes to novels. Trust me—I wrote for years. I even won a short
story competition. But I never got through a novel.”

  “All right, then. I’ll see you in 15.”

  I start to leave, but hesitate on my way out the red warehouse doors. “On Writing is good,” I say. “By Stephen King.”

  “Thanks.”

  I haven’t eaten today, but even my ravenous hunger is given pause by the sheer variety that now confronts me. I walk aimlessly along the freezers until the TV dinners catch my attention. I mouth their names. “Salisbury Steak.” Intriguing. “Chicken Parmagiana.” Captivating. “Roast Duck with Orange Sauce.” I think I’m getting aroused.

  I grab the Roast Duck and take it to the cash registers. Lane One’s lineup is kind of long, so I go to Lane Two. The cashier has short, dark hair and glasses. Her nametag says “Lesley-Jo.”

  “Hi,” I say. I have a thing for girls with glasses. My brain is devoid of things to say.

  “Hey. You the new Grocery boy?”

  “Yep. Sheldon.”

  “I’m Lesley-Jo.” She scans the dinner: beep. “That’s $3.89, Sheldon.”

  I pay her. “Bon appétit,” she says.

  I turn around and find Eric staring down at me. His eyes are narrowed.

  “What’s that?” he says.

  “It’s a microwavable dinner.”

  “What’s in it?”

  Slowly, I turn the package till the duck’s gleaming breast is in view.

  He points at the picture. “You’re supposed to be a vegetarian.”

  “Um, I am.”

  “This is meat.”

  “It’s not mine. It’s—it’s for Gilbert.”

  “Well, let’s go give it to him, then.”

  We walk past the aisles. Eric’s damp hand rests on my shoulder again, and I feel like I’m being escorted to the gallows. We find Gilbert in Aisle Five, sitting on his cart, restocking boxes of popcorn. He notices us before we reach him.

  Eric holds up the Roast Duck. “Is this yours?”

  Without moving his head, Gilbert glances at the dinner, at Eric, and at me. He’s expressionless, and his darting eyes are almost too quick to follow. He stands up and plucks the dinner from Eric’s hands. “Yep.”

  Eric blinks. “He bought this for you? Why?”

  “I told him it’s tradition for the rookie to buy lunch for whoever trains him in.”

  “I haven’t heard of that before.”

  “That’s because I made it up.”

  Eric studies Gilbert’s face a moment longer. Then he looks at me. “For a second I thought you might be a liar, vegan.”

  “Damn, rookie,” Gilbert says once Eric’s out of earshot. “You make friends quick.” He puts another box of popcorn on the shelf.

  “How did you know what was going on?”

  “He looked pissed, and you looked worried. I figured you lied to him about something.”

  “What’s his deal?”

  “He got back from Afghanistan two years ago, and he’s worked here ever since. That’s his deal.”

  “What will he do if he catches me eating meat?”

  He scratches his scruff-shadowed cheek. “Have you fired, probably.”

  “Great.”

  “It could be worse.”

  “How?”

  He takes the Roast Duck from his cart and walks toward the warehouse. “You could be working for him.”

  Chapter Three

  Home, I take two steak burgers from the freezer and put them in the microwave. I only had enough break left to grab an apple after my encounter with Eric, and now I’m craving meat. Once they’re done I place them in buns, squirt some ketchup on, and eat them standing in the kitchen.

  Marcus Brutus comes in and gazes up at me with wide eyes. “Meow.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Meow.”

  “Shut up. Go away.”

  Marcus Brutus licks his paw and sneezes. He looks back at me. “Meow.”

  I visit Sam later, and he asks about my day. I consider telling him about Gilbert’s mid-shift haircut, or the meat manager’s strange interest in my diet. But Sam got me the job, and I don’t want to seem ungrateful.

  “It was pretty good.”

  “How are the other workers?”

  “Nice, I guess.”

  “Talk to them much?”

  “A little. I don’t really know what to say to them.”

  “Say anything. Life’s not like fiction, you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I think you read too many books. Stop worrying about finding things to say, and stop assuming every silence is awkward.”

  “I—”

  “Shut up for a minute. You need to stop being so afraid. Just don’t say anything for a while.”

  *

  They let me out of the psych ward because, despite diagnosing me with clinical depression, they no longer thought I was in immediate danger of killing myself. This was after three weeks on Zoloft, of course.

  They also assigned me a therapist, and I have my first session with her the morning after my first shift at Spend Easy. The receptionist invites me to take a seat, and when my therapist enters the waiting room to escort me to her office, I see they’ve made a big mistake. She’s beautiful. I can’t ‘open up’ to her. I’ll be as talkative as a dead clam.

  I follow her into the office and sit down.

  “So,” she says, her legs crossed, a clipboard perched on her knee. She has bright blue eyes, long eyelashes, and thick brown hair. “I’m Bernice, you’re Sheldon. How is Sheldon?”

  “Fine,” I say. I try not to wipe my sweaty palms on my pants.

  “Nice weather.”

  “Wouldn’t this be more efficient if you just asked me why I wanted to kill myself?”

  She jiggles her pen, tapping it lightly against the clipboard. “Is that what you’re interested in discussing?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Then let’s not.”

  “But—”

  “Being a decent therapist is really easy, Sheldon. If all I do is listen to you talk about the things you’re ready to talk about, then I’ve done my job pretty well. If I manage to say a few things that help you reach some insights about yourself, then I’ve been an excellent therapist. And that’s about all there is to this.”

  “What if I’m not ready to talk about anything?”

  “Then I would say that’s pretty typical for a first session. Why don’t we try again next time?”

  I stare at her.

  “Go on.” She makes a shooing gesture. “Go talk to the receptionist about scheduling your next appointment.”

  *

  I forgot Crow at Spend Easy, and I need to find out when I’m working, so after I leave Bernice’s office I bike to my new workplace.

  When you first enter Spend Easy, you’re facing the section with the Bakery, Deli, and Produce departments. Across the store, just out of sight, is Meat. Hang a right. Now you’re walking between the aisles and the cash lanes. With only five aisles and six cash registers, Spend Easy isn’t a very big grocery store.

  If you look at Lane Two, you’ll see Cassandra, the current record holder for breaking my heart the most, checking in a bag of frozen peas. She works here, too.

  She sees me. Her eyebrows shoot up, and she raises her hand. “Hey, Sheldon,” she says.

  Look away. Make a quick detour down Aisle Two.

  I met Cassandra in junior high. She was attractive, and willing to talk to me, which is a rare quality among females. In fact, girls were so uninterested in me, I assumed Cassandra was a fluke. I assumed that this was the first and last time a girl would ever have time for me.

  We became close. We laughed a lot. She thought it was cool I liked to write, and I thought it was cool she was hot.

  She has large brown eyes, and a way of smiling with half her mouth that always made my heart race, back then. Whenever she was thinking about something she would brush her hair over her right ear. I noticed every time.

  We spent a lo
t of time together. I told her everything about myself, except that I loved her. She told me a lot, too. About her Mom walking out on her and her Dad when she was a kid, and never coming back.

  Once, she told me I wasn’t like other guys. I didn’t treat her like a ‘girl’ as distinct from a ‘boy’—I just treated her like another person. She liked that.

  That same day, I told her I loved her. After that, the hanging out stopped. So did the late-night IM conversations. In the halls at school, she smiled and looked away.

  That was grade nine. In grade 10, around Christmas, she messaged me to say she missed me. I was the only one who understood her. She wanted to hang out again, so we did. We went skating, and skiing, and when summer came, we did summer stuff. One day, in August, she reached out and took my hand while we were walking. I didn’t let go till we reached her house. When I did, she locked eyes with me and said, “You know, Sheldon, one day you’re going to hate me.”

  She got a boyfriend the first week of grade 11. We stopped talking again.

  I made friends with Sean that same year. He wanted to be a writer, too. He was well-liked—not an outcast, like me. I’m not sure how we were friends, actually.

  In grade 12, it happened again with Cassandra. I told myself I didn’t feel anything for her anymore. But I was wrong.

  One night, surprising even myself, I asked if I could kiss her. I asked her permission. She said no.

  And, when I heard a couple weeks later that she’d kissed Sean at a party, it crushed me. They started dating, and I haven’t talked to either since. Presumably their love attained breathtaking heights, and they went on adventures together to distant lands, bringing back stories they’ll recount again and again to their grandchildren. Hell, I don’t have a Facebook account—she might have married him, for all I know.

  Meanwhile, I attempted suicide.

  Yesterday Frank said the Grocery manager is named Ralph, and there’s a blond-haired man wearing a Ralph nametag in the warehouse, toting a futuristic black gun. I’m guessing that’s him. He and a delivery guy are circling a pallet stacked high with dairy products held together with plastic wrap. The guy rips the plastic, exposing a yogurt container’s barcode, and Ralph points his gun, a blinking red light playing over the product. There’s a beep, and Ralph presses some buttons on the gun’s interface. They repeat this several times. I wait patiently, a spectator to their awkward, shuffling dance.