Maybe tomorrow would pick up?
Winny set his half-eaten bag of corn nuts on the counter and crumbs sprinkled out across it. He made his way toward the bathroom, at the back of the store. Along the way, he grabbed his wooden mop which was rested in a yellow bucket. The bucket wheels were loose and they whined every couple of feet and the back right wheel spun back and forth, lazily. It wasn’t closing time yet, but Winny figured he might as well mop the floor, getting it out of the way.
“It’s my turn to clean the crapper, right?” Winny hollered.
Garth blew his shaggy brown hair away from his tan face. Looking to the back of the store, he stood up and directed his dark brown eyes at Winny. “Yeah, bro. It’s your turn to clean the crapper. I’ll sweep up when we close.”
Nodding, Winny pushed his mop bucket toward the restrooms.
Stopping in the middle of the brightly lit hallway, which separated the men’s room from the lady’s, Winny propped the large blue door open with his plastic bucket. He quickly dipped the stringy cloth end of the mop into the soapy water. Tiny white bubbles popped at the surface. He stirred the handle until a thin layer of foam spread across the surface of the swaying water. It smelled piney and pleasant. Moving from the far end of the hall to the mouth of it, Winny swabbed the mop from side to side, never missing a spot.
2
The store’s automated doorbell chimed loudly when Father Leslie Gardner entered the store. Shaking his head, he blew out an exhausted breath. He waved his arms up and down like a bird. He sighed when the cold air conditioning surrounded him. Standing beneath the vent, he closed his eyes and inhaled deep. His light gray T-shirt was sweat stained underneath his armpits and lower stomach. He wiped his forehead with his forearm then turned to Garth and smiled.
“Man, is it hot out there. It’s nearly dark out and I’m sweating like a hog,” Gardner said cheerfully. He continued to wipe sweat from his brow. “I got this sweaty walking from the house.”
“You only live up the hill,” Garth returned, subtly sarcastic. He barely looked up from his magazine to acknowledge Gardner.
“I know,” Gardner said matter-of-fact like. He had an excitement in his tone. A grin curled across his aging face. “Where’s your brother?”
“Back here!” Winny shouted excitedly from the back hallway.
Father Gardner turned to the back of the store. He raised his right hand and waved. “Good evening to you, Winny. Why is your brother so cranky?”
“Evening, Father! He’s always cranky, you know that.”
Shaking his head, Father Gardner winked at Garth, who looked annoyed and went to the cooler. He walked past the cold beer and stopped near the milk. He pulled out two gallons of two percent from the bottom rack, walked back to the counter and set the milk jugs next to the cash register. He dug through his pockets. A moment later, he held out a crisp twenty dollar bill while Garth rang him up.
“It’s sure been a scorcher, wouldn’t you say?” Father Gardner prodded, running his hand through his damp silver hair.
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve been in the nice, cold, air conditioning all day.” He set his magazine down and looked out the window. “I might go for a run after work.” He turned to Gardner with an inquisitive expression. “Say, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure thing.”
“You’re a priest? I mean we call you Father and all. So, where’s your church? I thought you worked in a flower shop?” Garth asked as he took Gardner’s twenty dollar bill. He put the twenty in the register and then counted out Gardner’s change.
Gardner nodded as he briefly skimmed over his change. He put the money in his pocket then looked up at Garth, “Excellent question. I retired about eighteen years ago. I still work with the church, but on more of a consultant level. I spent a lot of my days traveling…setting up aid in third world countries and less fortunate parts of America…that kind of thing.” Gardner responded, vaguely. He didn’t think it was necessary to tell Garth that he’d spent most of his time fighting heinous acts of evil, exercising demonic spirits and battling those who lived their lives along a disturbed path. That, in fact, was why he’d retired in the first place. The exhaustion that came from fighting unholy enemies had gotten to be too much. He couldn’t handle it anymore, didn’t want to. Neither could his mind. He wanted to experience a bit of happiness. He desperately wanted to relax before he left this world. Now, he lived with his beautiful wife Donna, the love of his life. They were happy. They still worked, owning a garden nursery in town. They didn’t make much money, but the work was relaxing and it was easy. Given the things that Gardner had seen, he didn’t think that it was too much to want a little peace before he passed. Not that he would pass anytime soon. He was well and in good shape for a sixty year old man. He didn’t drink—maybe a glass of wine with dinner—and he was an avid runner. Given the stress of his career, he was lucky he hadn’t had a heart attack, yet. The average man would have dropped dead if he’d seen an eighty year old Hispanic woman crawl across the ceiling of her one bedroom apartment, on the Mexican side of Tijuana. The many faces of evil were branded into Gardner’s memory. His thoughts were scarred from the evils he’d fought.
“You want a plastic bag for your milk?” Garth asked.
“No thanks. Say hi to Buggy for me. Tell him to stop drinking so much beer. Every time I see him…he’s drinking beer.”
Garth aimed his index finger at Father Gardner like a gun and then pulled the trigger and said, “He’s pretty happy, Father, and beer isn’t the worst thing in the world.” He raised his finger to the sky. “Say hey to your father…for me.”
Gardner smiled, gently. He left the liquor store with his milk jugs. A hot gust of humid air bellowed into the store as he left.
3
The sun disappeared, replaced by darkness and the rising moon. Inside the store, Garth ran his palm along the rough edge of the wiry metal rack that ran the length of aisle one. The rack neatly displayed all the sugar based snacks, like candy bars and gummy candy.
He made his way toward the restrooms. Along the way, the yellow wrapper of a Butterfinger called out to him. He hadn’t eaten a candy bar in a long time. It wouldn’t kill him to have just one. He thought about it—then passed.
Garth hated cleaning and he didn’t want to help Winny either but he was bored and craved some company. After rounding the corner of aisle two, he grabbed a bag of potato chips from the corner shelf, ripped the bag open and began to munch. He moved into the men’s room doorway and leaned against the open doorframe. He kicked at the wooden door stop wedged beneath the chipped door and tiled floor.
“How can a guy as smart as Gardner believe in something as silly as God? You’d think he’d be smart enough to acknowledge the facts.”
Winny stopped mopping. Garth knew he’d struck a chord. He sometimes forgot, or chose to forget, that Winny was a believer.
Slow and precise, Frowning, Winny set his mop against the off-white tile wall. Garth rolled his eyes. He knew he shouldn’t have said anything. Now, he would receive a lecture about how Jesus died for our sins and blah, blah, blah. There was no concrete evidence that God existed, let alone had a child.
“Why are people who believe in God stupid?” Winny asked. He steadied the mop and crossed his arms. “I believe in God. I’m not a genius, but I don’t think I’m stupid.”
Here it was. He should have kept his fool mouth shut.
“You want to stay in this town and keep working at this stupid liquor store, that’s stupid too,” Garth hissed back. He didn’t know why he put it that way either, the words just came out.
“So you are saying that I’m stupid?”
“You’re acting stupid. I don’t think that you are stupid. It’s stupid that you’ve accepted this store as your destiny,” Garth enlightened his brother. He didn’t know why he’d said all this. He immediately wished he had kept his mouth shut. For one reason or another, he was antagonizing his brother.
“And why did
you change the topic from religion to geographic location?”
A long silence followed. Winny stared at the floor. He prodded his toe at the edge of his mop. Then, his eyes swept upward and he said, “This store’s been in our family our entire lives. I have fond memories in and of this place. In a way it’s a living thing. This store provided our family with a home, money and a life. That’s not stupid. It’s a success. And if you see a success as stupid, then you might want to ask yourself if you aren’t the one acting stupid.”
Garth gritted his teeth. He hated it when Winny came at him like this, making him feel unappreciative. It was degrading. It made him feel selfish.
“I guess I want more than this. Think about it. We run a liquor store in a stupid little town that no one’s ever heard of. Don’t you want more out of life?” Garth returned.
“Like what?”
And that was the problem; Garth Gasper didn’t know what he wanted. He only knew that it was more than this. He was better than this place and he wanted to prove it to the world. Even more than the world, he wanted his family to know it. Their father, Buggy, originally named William, had technically given the store to both of them equally, but everyone knew that Winny was in charge. And it wasn’t because Winny was smarter—he wasn’t. He was the oldest and it just seemed right to let Winny run the place. He was more assertive.
“I want to move out to California, live by the ocean,” Garth finally said, with no conviction. Living in California wasn’t necessarily a plan. It was just a place. The only difference was that California’s weather was great.
Both Garth and Winny had friends that had moved out to California in search of the American dream. Tom Hopkins moved to Los Angeles shortly after graduation. He had intentions of becoming a famous actor, but had only become cynical. He moved back home two years later. He’d developed a nasty drug problem to boot and he’d blown his savings. His only success was a small role on a television show about homosexual men in rural Texas.
“What do you want to do in California, Garth? I’m not trying to be mean; I just don’t know what you want to do with your life. If you don’t want to stay here, that’s fine. Just because I’m content here doesn’t mean that you have to be. But it would be nice to know that you have a goal and that you’re trying to achieve it.”
Winny always had a way of asking questions which in turn made him appear angelic. He talked like he’d already done it all, seen everything there was to see. Winny could be self-righteous. He liked taking the high road and did so whenever he had the chance. Still, Winny had what he wanted out of life, he was happy living on a pedestal in this one horse town. He was able to look down at his misguided little brother and hover above the simple minded population. It made him feel superior, or so Garth thought.
“You’re really getting mad at me, aren’t you?” Winny asked as he squared off with his disgruntled sibling. He placed his hand on Garth’s right shoulder. “I’m serious. I just want you to be happy. I wish that working here, with me, was enough. But if you need to go…and see the world…then that’s what you need to do. I get it. I admire that. You’re a dreamer.”
Garth genuinely felt bad. Sometimes his thoughts got the best of him. His idle mind allowed his paranoia to spin out of control.
“And as for the God thing, I just like to think that there’s more to life than just eating, sleeping, procreating, and going poop.” Winny concluded. “Otherwise, what’s the point? None of this would mean anything.”
At poop they both busted into laughter.
Chapter 5
1
The full moon hung high in the night sky, around it, the stars danced brightly across the cloudless black canvas. Below the magnificence of the universe, a beat-up old truck drove down the empty highway. The headlights illuminated the fading yellow dash marks in need of fresh paint. Each dash shot beneath the rusted red truck as it sped forward.
Inside the vehicle, Timmy Sutter, a thirty-two year old, roughneck biker-type with ice coursing through his veins, drove at a steady pace of fifty-five miles an hour. He cruised down Highway 26 with the driver’s side window rolled halfway down. The subtle breeze blew Timmy’s dark brown hair back and around, whipping his thick beard. The fresh air was comforting, making him feel at ease. He was careful to drive the speed limit, not wanting to get pulled over. Especially, since he and Terrance Morton, an African American biker thug with no hair on his face or head, and Cherri Joyce, his beautifully disturbed blue eyed, red-headed girlfriend, had just knocked off a gas station on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi river.
Timmy’s two accomplices were sleeping on the seats next to him. The seats were small and everyone was scrunched in tight. They were over a hundred miles away from the gas station they’d recently robbed. The station they’d hit was located at the edge of a small river town, making it was an easy target. The clerk had been scared, and she didn’t worry about protocol to risk her life for what was in the register. She gave every cent to Timmy. She would have given them anything they wanted, so long as they left fast.
As usual, Terrance stood as a lookout inside the station, near the door. This way, he could identify and deal with anyone that entered. He could control the situation while Timmy conducted the armed robbery.
Like Terrance, Cherri’s job was to act as a lookout while Timmy did the gun work. She would warn Terrance if anyone threatened to enter and Terrance would inform Timmy. Cherri looked innocent and young for her age. She was twenty-three, but easily passed for seventeen. She would sit on the curb, outside the front door, drinking a coke or licking an ice cream cone.
The last job had been easy. When the gas station attendant saw Timmy’s gun, she calmly opened the cash register and retrieved all of the money. She stacked the green bills neatly in her shaky hands. She even put the change inside of a plastic bag and zipped it shut. She’d handed the cash to Timmy as if he were a paying customer. Timmy appreciated her cooperation. In all truthfulness, he didn’t like hurting people. He didn’t like struggles. He’d knocked off quite a few gas stations and cooperation was always welcome. Struggles usually occurred when the pump jockey got itchy and felt the need to be a hero. Those were the jobs that ended up messy. In situations like that, someone always got hurt. Luckily—so far—no one had gotten dead.
Timmy hadn’t killed anyone, but he’d gotten violent on more than one occasion. A few of his uncooperative victims had spent a good amount of time in the hospital. He could be rough. If it had to be done, he would clock the clerk with the butt of his pistol. A good crack to the nose left the hero dazed. During the course of his criminal career, Timmy had broken a few noses and knocked a few people unconscious. Thankfully, that’s all the violence that had been necessary.
Now, driving down Highway 26, about thirty miles west of Dodge Junction, Timmy realized that they needed more cash. More money would be necessary to continue their travels. The last gas station had been a success, but it only amounted to four hundred dollars—not a lot. Four hundred was chicken scratch and it would only carry them for a day or two. They were headed to Detroit, which was a couple hundred miles east.
Timmy’s brother ran a chop shop in downtown Motor City. He’d been attempting to get Timmy to work for him for a couple of years. But a few stints in county jail and a few years of probation had hindered the opportunity.
Terrance was along for the ride. Terrance and Timmy met in the county jail. They had been cellmates and after they were released, they’d worked a couple of jobs together. They weren’t a team, but they collaborated well. Terrance was outgoing, so there would be plenty of opportunity for him in Detroit. He could unload product; drugs, guns, stolen goods. Many of the abandoned neighborhoods around inner city Detroit were serving as cook houses for the manufacturing of drugs. Terrance was the kind of guy who could sniff-out a good operation and excel at it. Terrance’s high wasn’t the drugs. It was the action. It was the thrill of making a deal, holding up a station, getting away with it.
&nb
sp; Cherri, on the other hand, was Timmy’s woman. Despite how badly Timmy treated Cherri, he loved her. She was loyal. She whined about his career choice, but that was her job, to nag. He’d only gotten rough with her a few times. Usually, after she’d suggested he find a new line of work. She believed in this fairy tale where she could change him, that she could manipulate him into settling down and working a real job and they could live happily-ever-after, on love.
What a joke.
He wondered how long she’d stick around. His lifestyle would eventually turn her away, or get her killed. In this line of business, relationships had a shelf life. Sure, he’d thought about quitting the criminal life and settling down. He wanted to give Cherri everything she desired. But she didn’t understand that this lifestyle was it for him. He didn’t know how to do anything else and, truthfully, he didn’t want to do anything else. His brother’s chop shop was the compromise. She would have to respect that because that’s the way it was. Plus, his brother’s chop shop was a steady job. It wasn’t legal, but it was structured and organized.
2
Cherri woke up when the low rumble of the truck’s engine grew louder and the cab began to shift. The tires juggled over the jagged shoulder of the highway. Small rocks kicked up under the floor panels. The pebbles sounded like marbles on wood. The current terrain was bumpy, indicating, the roads were in desperate need of maintenance. There were potholes scattered everywhere. In the dark, you couldn’t see where the road ended. The paint markings were faded, almost non-existent.
Cherri focused on Timmy. He pulled a brown paper bag from beneath his seat. He dug into the bag, pulled the tab off a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and sipped from it.
The Last Customer Page 4
