Taking Stock

by Scott Bartlett

  After the movie, when she asks me what I thought of it, I have very little to say. I barely watched the movie. My thoughts kept repeating in my head, on loop, loud.

  On the bike ride home, it feels like the ground is rushing past underneath me. I keep asking Theresa to slow down. “We’re not going that fast, Sheldon,” she says once, but she slows down each time I ask.

  I ride with her to her apartment. She gives me a kiss before going in. “Call me, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say. I get on my bike, and ride away.

  *

  I quit smoking pot. Theresa didn’t ask me to, but I’m afraid it will start causing problems with us, if I continue. I got really scared, during our date—it made me realize how much it would hurt me to lose her.

  That isn’t the only reason I quit. When Gilbert asks why, I say, “I don’t know. You’ll probably think it’s stupid.”

  “Probably. Why?”

  “I started feeling like the only time I’m happy anymore is when I’m high.”

  “Were you happy before you started smoking?”

  “Not really. Sometimes.”

  “Well, synthetic happiness is better than no happiness.”

  I visit my mother’s grave, for the first time in months. Someone’s planted something on it. I get down on my hands and knees and study it up close. It looks like a bunch of little ferns.

  I stand up. I clasp my hands together and I bow my head. I say, “God, if you exist, please make my Mom happy, if she still exists somewhere.”

  I look up at the sky. There are a few clouds. I don’t think they’re trying to tell me anything. I don’t feel any better, or any worse. Nothing has changed.

  “I’m going to be okay, Mom,” I say. “I’ll come back.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Since I quit smoking weed, Theresa and I have gotten a lot closer—joking around a lot more, trusting each other more. We’ve been together almost every day, and a couple times we’ve stayed awake till the morning, lying in each other’s arms, talking.

  That’s how I know this is a bad idea.

  “How long has it been since you smoked?” Donovan says.

  “Almost two weeks.”

  “Oh, man. This is gonna mess you up, then.” He passes me the joint.

  “Thanks.” I take a hit and pass it back. “Do you have any eye drops?”

  “Nope.”

  “Damn. I left mine home. Didn’t think I’d be doing this tonight.”

  We’re on break, standing behind the strip mall across the road from Spend Easy. The sun is setting. Someone drives past, and Donovan hides the joint behind his back till they’re gone.

  “Hey, man,” Donovan says. “Are you okay?”

  “Huh?”

  “You don’t look good. You wanna sit down?”

  But then it’s like the sun plummets below the horizon, and it all goes dark.

  *

  Shaking. Someone’s shaking me.

  “Sheldon? You all right? We have to get back to the store, man. We’ve been gone too long.”

  I open my eyes. Donovan’s face hovers over me, concerned.

  “Wasn’t expecting that,” I say.

  He chuckles. “Yeah. I have a cousin who faints sometimes, smoking.”

  “Was I saying anything?”

  “No. You cracked your head off the side of the building, though. You all right?”

  “I feel warm.” I look down at myself.

  “I think you pissed yourself, dude.”

  “Fuck.”

  We walk back across the road to the Spend Easy parking lot, and Donovan grabs me some napkins from his car’s glove box. I mop up as much of the urine as I can. I ask if he thinks it’s noticeable, and he says yeah, it sort of is.

  “I suggest you walk to Aisle One as quick as you can, pocket some eye drops, and go to the customer washroom.”

  “Yeah. Sorry, man. You probably weren’t counting on this being so stressful.”

  “I’m not stressed.”

  I follow his advice. I walk through Aisle One, grabbing some eye drops off the shelf without stopping. The bottle comes encased in a cardboard box, which I stuff into my pocket and then walk to the customer restroom, making my strides as long as possible while attempting to appear casual. When I get there, I try the knob, but it won’t turn. It’s locked.

  “Hey,” someone says behind me.

  I turn around. Eric is leaning against the wall, his massive arms crossed.

  “Looks like you didn’t make it in time,” he says. He nods at my crotch.

  “I spilled something,” I say.

  He uncrosses his arms, steps forward, and seizes the rectangular bulge in my pocket. “That feels like an awkward thing to be carrying around in your pants. What is it?”

  “None of your business.”

  He reaches inside and takes it out. “Eye drops. Your eyes bothering you?”

  I don’t say anything.

  He bends closer, and squints at me. “Looks a bit like pink eye. In both eyes. Do you have a receipt for this?”

  “No.”

  “And if we ran it through the system, would it come up as purchased? Or stolen?”

  Again, I say nothing.

  “Let’s head to Frank’s office, shall we?” He makes a sweeping gesture that ends with his left hand pointing toward Aisle One. “After you.”

  I start walking slowly toward the store office. I can feel my heart beat. I struggle to put my thoughts together into some sort of plan. All I can think about is how difficult it would be to get a job anywhere else. This is my only work experience.

  When we get to the office, Eric holds up the box of eye drops and tells Frank he found it on me, and that I was unable to produce a receipt. Also, that my eyes are red, and I smell of marijuana.

  My pants are damp against my thighs.

  Frank’s eyes are locked on the box of eye drops. “I’m afraid we’ll have to let you go. Employee theft results in immediate termination. We won’t press charges. You will receive your final paycheck in the mail.”

  Eric smiles. Frank’s eyes dart to his computer monitor. Sweat gleams on his forehead, and he’s slowly clenching and unclenching his hands.

  “Toodles, vegan,” Eric says.

  I take a breath. And another. I turn toward the door. Eric moves out of my way, still smiling.

  I don’t leave.

  “I’m sure Randy has a Facebook account,” I say.

  “What does Randy have to do with this?” Frank says.

  “I’m just saying that I can easily get in touch with him. And I have some compromising information about you, Frank. I think I’ll go home and write it on his profile, for everyone to see.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Eric says.

  “Bye,” I say. I take another step.

  “Wait,” Frank says. “You’re not fired. You can stay.”

  The box of eye drops crumples in Eric’s hand. “What the fuck?”

  Frank’s face is red. “Everyone in this room has a secret now, Eric. All three of us. Either all the secrets stay in this room, or they all get out. This isn’t how I want it. But it’s how it is.”

  “What’s your secret?” Eric says.

  “What’s yours?” I say.

  Eric glares at me, his hands clenched so tight they’re shaking. “Get out, vegan. Get out before I throw you out.”

  “Sure thing, asshole.”

  *

  The shift after our confrontation, I take a TV dinner and walk past the Meat department with it. Eric’s restocking hamburger, and I hold up the dinner.

  “Have you tried the Chicken Parmagiana, Eric?” I say. “It’s fucking delicious.”

  His eyes narrow.

  Another day, Theresa catches me stealing a bag of chips on her way back from the washroom to the front end. She sees me take them off the shelf and walk toward the warehouse.

  “Are you going to pay for those?” she says.

  “No.”

/>   “I didn’t think you’d steal, Sheldon.”

  “It’s just chips.”

  “What would your Mom say?”

  Gilbert’s sitting on his cart halfway down the aisle, tossing a box of popcorn into the air and catching it. He watches as I place the chips back on the shelf, and chuckles.

  Theresa goes back to the front end. “What would your Mom say?” Gilbert says, mimicking her.

  “Shut up.”

  “Life is a prison,” he says. “Girlfriends are the jailors.”

  *

  I asked Gilbert to arrange for me to work overnights again. We’re a couple hours into one, smoking a joint in front of the store, when Matt rides up on a bicycle.

  “Hey, Matt,” I say.

  “You need to stop giving Eric trouble,” he says.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He’s worried about you exposing him. And he’s taking it out on us.”

  “By hitting you? Why don’t you call the cops, Matt? Why do you let him do that?”

  “He threatens to hurt my family.” Matt’s voice is growing ragged. “He knows I have a sister from searching my Facebook profile, and he specifically mentions her. He’s crazy, Sheldon. And he’s military trained. He says if I tell, and they arrest him, he’ll just pay bail and go after my sister.”

  “If you tell what?”

  Matt sobs, and doesn’t speak.

  “What does he do to you, Matt?”

  “He rapes them,” Gilbert says, in the croak peculiar to people holding smoke in their lungs. He exhales, and I can see it disperse in the light shining out from Spend Easy.

  I look at Matt. But Matt won’t look at me, and he doesn’t speak.

  “Matt,” I say. “You need to do something about this.”

  He shakes his head. “It’s my fault. He says I sent him signals. Sometimes I think I could be gay. I probably did give Eric the wrong impression.”

  I put my hand to my forehead. “Even if that was true, he has no right,” I say.

  Tears roll down Matt’s face. He stays silent.

  “Go home, Matt,” Gilbert says. “Go on, you poor bastard.”

  Matt gets on his bike and pedals away.

  Gilbert holds the joint out to me. I take it and throw it on the ground, crushing it against the sidewalk with my foot.

  “Eric rapes his employees?” I say. “Grown men? He just rapes the entire department, and no one does anything?”

  “Not all of them,” Gilbert says. “One or two, at any given time. The ones with the lowest confidence. Makes them think it’s their fault. You heard him.” He opens the door and heads into Spend Easy. I follow. “He screens all his new hires. A lot of his workers are poor. It’s not that surprising no one exposes him. Statistically, men raped by other men are the least likely to report it.”

  “How long have you known about this?”

  “A while.”

  “Why haven’t you done anything about it?”

  “Eric knows I’m blackmailing Frank.” Gilbert leads me down Aisle Five, grabbing a bottle filled with caramel corn on the way to the warehouse. “If I screw him, he’ll screw me. Pardon the pun.”

  “That’s disgusting. You’re fucking disgusting.”

  He whirls around, and jabs me in the chest with the caramel corn. “Back the fuck up, Sheldon. Quit being self-righteous long enough to use your brain. Eric’s an insane motherfucker. If I recall correctly, he’s suspect number one for locking you in the freezer. How do I know he won’t really go after his employees’ families, if he’s exposed? How do you know? Are you going to take that risk?”

  I say nothing. I’m grinding my teeth.

  “What do we do in this society, when we see atrocity? Huh? What do we do, when we learn our favourite clothes were made by kids in sweatshops? What do we do, when it comes out that first-world governments are torturing people? We look the other way, and we say thank God it’s not me. Then we go see a movie. Read a book, maybe.”

  He turns again and walks toward the warehouse. I stay where I am.

  “If Eric goes down,” Gilbert says as he leaves, “he’s taking all of us with him. Me, Frank, and even you, Sheldon. You’re part of this, now, too.”

  *

  I sleep past my alarm, and get up late—too late to make it on time for my shift. I trudge to the washroom and start brushing my teeth.

  The bristles hurt my gums. That’s weird. I look down at the toothbrush, and there’s a tiny bead of blood.

  I brush more carefully, and when I’m finished I rip off some floss and insert it between two molars. The floss gets stuck, though, and I wiggle it back and forth, trying to work it out. Four of my teeth fall out, and a large section of my gums comes with them, tearing away like play-dough. It all falls into the sink with a splat, and lies there, glistening.

  I wake up, drenched in sweat, to the phone ringing.

  Just a dream.

  “Hey, Sheldon? This is Ralph. Just calling to make sure everything’s all right.”

  “I slept in.”

  “No problem. Try to make it in as soon as you can.”

  “Actually, Ralph, I’m not feeling well. I don’t think I can come in, today.”

  “Very good.” He hangs up.

  I walk into the living room. For a long time, I sit on the couch with my head in my hands.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I’m working another overnight, and I just want to be baked. So baked I can’t think.

  But Gilbert has no weed. He says the biggest local dealer got busted, and the town’s all but dry.

  If he has none, the town must truly be dry. According to Donovan, Gilbert’s phone is full of drug dealers’ numbers. He doesn’t have a regular supplier—he buys it from whoever’s selling it cheapest, to increase his profit when he resells. Which is pretty ironic, considering I’ve heard plenty of people say Gilbert sells the best dope.

  We’re sitting in the break room. Tommy’s not on tonight, and I don’t think either of us is likely to do any work. I’m not sure what we’re going to tell Ralph tomorrow.

  Gilbert looks up from his phone. “We should have a party.”

  I nod. “By all means. You should throw a party. There are so many reasons to celebrate.”

  “I said we should have a party. Tonight. Inside Spend Easy.”

  “That’s pretty funny.”

  “I know. It would be hilarious.”

  I sigh. “Are you being serious?”

  “It’d be easy. All I’d have to do is go outside, put on a mask, come back in, and disable the cameras from Frank’s office. We’ll make sure everyone’s gone by morning. Then we could tell Frank a bunch of guys broke in and prevented us from leaving while they trashed the place.”

  “How would they prevent us from leaving?”

  He shrugs. “Tie us up.”

  “This is a profoundly bad idea.”

  “I’m texting people now. I’ll get Donovan to bring a mask.”

  Donovan shows up in 15 minutes, and I follow Gilbert as he walks through the store to meet him. “Can’t Frank access the cameras from home?” I say. “What if he notices the feed’s stopped?”

  “It’s past midnight, Sheldon. Frank’s not that motivated.”

  “What if someone driving by notices a party? Think they won’t report it?”

  “I’m sure everyone realizes this is party-at-your-own-risk. I don’t think we need a disclaimer.”

  “I’m not worried about them.”

  “Go back to the warehouse and get some overstock or something. You can’t come with me while I do this.”

  Within an hour, there are at least 40 people in the store. When he texted them, Gilbert told them each to park in a different place—some at the strip mall across the road, a couple at the nearby gas station, a few more behind Spend Easy.

  Gilbert made one rule: stay away from the windows near the front. Otherwise, he told them to do whatever they want. It’ll only make the ‘takeover’ seem
more realistic.

  So the guests/intruders are helping themselves to everything in the store. That’s not limited to eating—one guy tears a little hole in two bags of macaroni and takes to flicking them about, twin streams of pasta flailing around Aisle Two. In Aisle Five, someone sets up a bowling lane, complete with pineapple pins and the roundest watermelon to be found. And in Produce, a girl starts puncturing and draining coconuts for people to use as flasks.

  As for Gilbert’s rule, no one follows it. People are standing around the cash registers, talking, drinking, and smoking. There are at least 10 cars parked right out front. This is the sketchiest thing I’ve ever participated in.

  I can’t see Gilbert anywhere.

  I’m halfway down Aisle Three when something whizzes past my right ear and hits a bottle of canola oil, leaving a neon orange splatter.

  I turn around. There’s a guy standing at the end of the aisle with a paintball gun pointed at me. He waves.

  “Sorry, bro! Thought you were someone else.” He disappears from view.

  Wonderful.

  As I enter the warehouse, Tool starts blaring from the ceiling speakers. I find Donovan and a few others gathered around the cardboard compactor. There’s an open box of beer sitting on a pallet. I take one and open it.

  “Have you seen Gilbert?” I say.

  “He’s in the break room,” Donovan says.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Well, he has two girls in there with him, and they have the door barred. So your guess is as good as mine.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Playing a game.”

  “What game?”

  “We’re calling it Put It in the Compactor and Press the Green Button.”

  A girl places a carton of whole milk on top of the cardboard and hits the button. The machine descends, crushing it.

  “That was kind of disappointing,” she says. “You could barely even see the milk come out.”

  What was she expecting?

  “I did so much coke tonight,” Donovan says to me. “I’m blitzed.”