This End Up

$4.02. No, I don’t have change. I am ready to accept my abundance of change.

The Barista is overly bouncy with a hiked up A-shirt. Her arms have a thick layer of blond hairs the same way a naked mole rat is considered “hairless.” Whipped cream, yes, chocolate syrup, yes. She tabs open the paper nose of the milk carton.

“Soy milk. No real milk please.”

Since I’ve been at college, I put on weight. I already had that little pooch of baby fat on my face, forcing me to keep a constant state of scruff so I don’t look like I’m still in high school. I remember the summer before, my brother, the personal trainer poking my chest, grabbing at fat, pulling away handfuls of air. “You are going to get so fucking fat dude. Freshman 15.”

The fifteen pounds the school board says most freshman will gain because of new eating habits, change of atmosphere, new freedoms. What the fifteen really compensates for is depression, fear, adaptation, stress. Why do you think school cafeterias can never keep anything in their freezers?

Bon-bons, Hershey’s ice cream bars with peanuts, Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, Phish Food, Toll House chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches. It’s comfort food. I didn’t get depressed, but I did gain twenty pounds.

Erin’s car is a 1997 Protege. From my bed I hear her drive up, not clear the speed bump again, bottom out. Her “fucks” that follow. I take a Bawls energy drink from my mini fridge.

Nutritional Facts:
Serving size: 1 Bottle

Calories: 120
Total Fat: 0g

Sodium: 35mg
Total Carbohydrate: 32g

Sugars 32g

Not a significant source of other nutrients.

As I drink, I can feel the insignificant nutrient source liquidating the small muscles in my under arm. I know Erin is going to say something about my little flabby arms, again, just like every carpool Wednesday night.

My phone vibrates off the bedside Ikea table. The desperate little thing calls for my attention, vibrating again and again until it has moved itself to the heating vent on the floor. Now it’s louder, resting on the hot metal, screaming because it knows I’m awake. It goes one last time then it’s quiet, returned to Nokia Limbo. I wonder what time it is in the UK.

Her car smells like new plastic. I go around to the driver’s side. Plastic from combat boots that she laces over jeans on the non-SRS airbag certified dashboard. “$24.95, these are from Vietnam, cool huh?”

“Yeah, what are they for?”

“I’m dressing up as Alex from A Clockwork Orange.”

“Good choice. Can I be the rape victim?”

She smiles, stirring her coffee with a black Precise V5 pen. “I was gonna ask, ya know, but I thought it might be awkward.”

“It’s really awkward, I can’t believe you were going to ask.”

Gnnnnnkkkkhhh goes the Protege.

“That’s the wrong gear, retard. Do you hear it flooding?”

I shove the stick shift to the right then towards the dashboard. It whiplashes us back into the beige cracked-leather seats. “I hate driving your god damn car.”

“Shift into first, you’re in neutral, asshole.”

The car comes to a violent stop just outside of the grocery store parking lot. “Screw it, I give up. You park.”

With one combat boot on and the other foot bare, she hops around to the driver’s side. “You’re useless, Fisk.” She smiles at me, “you’re fat and you’re useless.”

I leave my energy drink on the street and get back in on the other side.

It’s 11:53pm and the night crew are all piling in from the back room. I wipe the sleep out of my eyes and let them adjust to the white lights of aisle 14.

All night grocery stores stock at around 12-2am. The few employees that stay around for the midnight shift stand in blue parkas, zipped to the neck with their hoods up. They stand waiting in the middle of the night for massive trucks that bring heavy things to throw their backs out with. Faceless brown boxes that give vague instructions like the image of a penguin and an arrow pointing up. They slump around with little push carts, they stock hair dye, they sweep the aisles. Their little worlds, cooled by recycled air and dairy freezers, controlled by demanding old ladies pointing shaking fingers at high-shelved items, and college students trying to crack the plastic security tips off bottles of Jack Daniels with Honda Fit keys. Their life soundtrack, “Hits of the 80’s” playing quietly all night long over the ceiling speakers. A midnight grocery store symphony.

From the push cart in the back room, I’m watching Erin put stickers on peaches. The heels of her boots raise and touch the tiled floor. She hums to Queen’s “Don’t Stop me Now” static tune from the Swiss cheese ceiling speakers.

Rick nudges my cart. “Come on Fisk, we’ve still got three flats of cum to go through before 2.”

I check expiration dates, stock the high shelves and clean up any break, spill, or otherwise dropped product in the store. On my paycheck it says my job title is “Dairy Clerk” but amongst the employees, Jessica tells me, it’s “Cum Monkey.” “Cum” because half the milk I check the expiration dates on has already congealed; “Monkey” because I climb shelves to stock them.

“Also, Sara called the store phone asking for you, your cell dead or something?”

“I must have left it at my apartment.” I lie. “I’ll tell her not to call here.”

“That phone is for work emergencies only.” Says Rick, who lost three fingertips to a meat slicer.

“She’s just lonely.”

“How’s she like her school in, where was it?”

“England, she doesn’t really like it. It’s hard to make British friends.”

“Arrogant fuckers.” Rick scratches his bald spot. “Go take care of those flats.”

I cut open the crate with my safety box cutter, the rubber handle resting in the web of my thumb and forefinger. I picture Sara throwing herself around her dorm room 5,456 miles away. My pocket has been vibrating all night.

5,456 miles I would give anything to be away from here. 5,456 miles that Sara took loans out for, woke up early for, took extra hours to pay for. 5,456 miles that I have needed away from this place for a long time, and she gets it, she made it, and all she wants to do is talk to me. Cry over the phone, the static and delay making her sobs sound like a torn movie reel.

The triangle blade follows a dotted line. I pull out gallons by the arm full, placing them on my cart. This is the first night I’ve ignored her calls since she’s been away. The gallons are warm and I watch the froth twirl as I wheel down the aisle.

You wouldn’t believe how little the expiration date on your milk carton means. “Fresh” organic milk with the smiling cow and rising sun, believe it or not, is not straight from the cow’s tit when you buy it. No, it’s not warm because we just shipped it here from the farm. It’s warm because Jessica left the dairy freezer door open so she could hear Rick’s radio from inside while she had a smoke break.

Tonight a portly man sporting a full chest-beard greets me with a smile. “Mind if I take one of those off your hands?”

“Not at all.”

He takes a 2% from under my cart. “Gosh darn, look at that. Warm and fresh like the days of the milk man. I bet that was before your time though.” He nudges me smiling.

I return the smile. “Excuse me, I need to get in there.” He moves and I start stocking.

“I’m lactose intolerant so I’ve got to take these little Lactaid pills.” I hear him fiddling with something plastic in his plaid pocket. “These little bastards.”

Looking back over my shoulder, I give him a nod, “yeah, I hate taking pills.”

“It’s not as bad as the drops. My wife used to have me on these Lactase enzyme drops.”

Lactase enzyme drops, 15.5ml. Over-the-counter drops you can pick up for around $20.00. When your girlfriend has you pick them up from work every Friday, you get used to the price. It doesn’t seem so bad. $20.00 a week to avoid the hours of bloating, self-pity, gas, anger, cramps, regret, diarrhea. It doesn’t seem so bad after you drink gallon after gallon of whole milk with enzyme drops shaken into them. You get used to it. You even start to like the new taste. You soon forget what milk ever tasted like.

“They always made me gassy.” The portly beard-man tells me. “I couldn’t keep any milk products down. What’s good about life if you can’t have a Strawberry Quick milkshake now and again?”

“Nothing is good about life then.”

“I was a dentist for thirty-one years so I know that sugar stuff is bad for you. I guess my body doesn’t like any of it, haha, but I’m a stubborn old bastard.”

Two crates more to go. Who let this old man out of his house? Erin and I call customers like this ear rapists. The safety box cutter sounds like a good way out of this conversation.

“I’ve got a bunch more milk to stock tonight, sir, it was nice talking to you.”

He shakes my hand with his limp greasy bear paw. “I don’t mind keeping you company, go get more milks and we’ll do it together.”

“That’s nice of you. But really…”

“No, no, my first job was at a market so I know the stocking floor. It’s not any bother to me, we’ll get it done in half the time.”

Erin grabs me by the hand and pulls me into the back yelling over her shoulder, “the store is on fire, everyone for themselves!”

Sitting cross-legged on the bench, Erin massages her feet. “These boots are so uncomfortable. Bad choice on my part.”

“I told you that, retard.”

“Shut up, you owe me. Rub my feet.”

The expiration date is an expression, like an anecdote that makes you feel better about yourself. It’s been sitting in that carton, somewhere for longer than you’d like to know. And between that somewhere and your fridge, it’s about as fresh as the powdered milk in your pantry, you know, that box that’s still waiting for the Apocalypse? About as fresh as Lactaid enzyme milk.

Erin smells like collard greens and sweat. The collard label stickers line the length of her arm to her white sleeves. The cycled wash sprays on the vegetables left a layer of mist on her pale arms. Her feet are soft and she closes her dark eyes as I massage them. She looks up at me with green eyes, cross eyed like all girls with heavy eye liner. “Have you eaten yet?”

We all have expiration dates. From ages 0-10 years old we’re milked, 11-20 we’re shipped, 21-40 we’re on the shelf, we rot, we die. We keep telling ourselves that we’re fresh. 40 is the new 20 is the new teen.

“No, I’m still trying to do that diet.”

“What, the ‘don’t eat anything’ diet? You don’t need to lose weight you’re just self-conscious.”

“Yeah?”

She touches my rib, and feels down to my stomach. “No, you’re a fat ass. You just want to be anorexic for Sara.”

“I don’t think she gives a shit what I look like as long as I can talk her down when she’s sad.”

Erin pulls her foot away and walks to her locker. “I’m probably gonna get breakfast with Allan and Derrel at Denny’s. We’re going dressed up if you wanna come along.”

“I don’t have a costume. Derrel’s going?”

“Yeah, I convinced him to go as Rocky from Rocky Horror. How awesome is that?”

As awesome as seeing Derrel’s junk through gold hot pants. “Rad.”

Her phone rings, some song by Lady Gaga pumping the little tinny speaker in her pink Motorola. She does her happy dance, jumping up and down like Charlie brown from the old campy cartoons. She picks up and sings a bit from the song, whoever is on the other end sings it back. “I’m so fucking excited! Yeah, let’s hit up BJ’s afterward. Okay, gotta get back out there.” She looks over her shoulder. “Oh, Fisk, let me know if you want to come to Denny’s. Dress up if you do.”

“I don’t have a costume.” My pocket vibrates and Erin is gone.
It’s 1:30 and the dairy aisle compliments the off-white floors. The wine section is roped off because of a Burgundy disaster area. Knocked off the Burgundy display stand. Just inches from the boxed wine, Rick keeps repeating, “just inches.”

I drag the heavy metal sign outside and lock the sliding glass door. “Please use the other door, thank you!” I roll quarters and put them in the safe, trying hard to remember Rick’s code. 0-0-0-0. In the back room, I sit against the wall, rolling dimes into a green sleeve. Sonny and Cher’s “I Hate to Sleep Alone” echo through the store. I expect a little post-it note stuck to my apartment door when I get back reading “rent please.” Apartment 302b, paid for by custom made checks, little green hearts surrounding a sepia colored couple. A thin girl with black hair, her smile awkward because of no natural smile lines. A guy holding her from behind, chubby to say the least. Husky maybe. It was her idea, the checks. My diet. The study abroad.

The break room phone rings next to me. I stare in disbelief at the yellowed receiver, watching the red light blink. I’ve told her not to call here unless it’s an emergency. Sara is so inconsiderate. She is so fucking inconsiderate. She’s been calling all night and won’t stop. She must have already called fourteen times. If I could only pick up and talk her down. Fulfill my purpose as her personal therapist, my job being of keep her just above the line of sulking depression. The ringing stops and the answering machine’s red light pauses, then flashes again.

It’s 3:42; Erin and I sit on the loading dock drinking from a cracked Burgundy bottle we can’t sell anymore. It was a 2003 Premier Cru, on sale for $67.99. Erin is wearing her Derby hat with white jeans and long-sleeve collared shirt. She swings the cane back and forth between her hanging legs. I sip the Burgundy out of my Dixie cup and feel my face go red. “How was your night?”

“I nearly stomped a baby.”

I watch the cane between her legs, she’s not wearing a bra. “Yeah?”

“Around 2, a mother came in with her baby, when she left there was a used diaper in the avocado basket. Under the diaper was a five. She fucking tipped me.”

“How thoughtful of her.”

“Only three weeks left, so I’m not gonna kill everyone here, yet.”

“I might beat you to it.”

“If you do go postal, just don’t kill me. Make me your partner in crime.”

I finish the cup and set it down. “Sara called all night. I ignored her.”

“Aren’t you a good boyfriend.”

“I shouldn’t have. It’s impossible to talk to her. She’s going through some stuff.”

“Don’t worry about it, she’s a tough girl. She’ll manage on her own over there.”

“If I have to hear her cry one more time I’m gonna kill myself.”

She drops her cane. “Shit.”

Jumping down to get it, headlights light up the parking lot. Erin runs over to the 88′ LeBaron. She and Darrel talk through the passenger window. I pour myself another Dixie cup.

“Fisk! Rocky is kidnapping me, wanna come to Denny’s?”

“Nah, no costume.”

“Aww, come on ‘tard, it will cheer you up!”

“I’m good.”

She gives me a little smile and tips her cap. She gets in the car and the off-brown jalopy mumbles into the distance.

It’s 5:05 and I’m standing in the order pick-up line of our store’s Starbucks.

“Dairy clerk, clean up on aisle 14.” Says the ceiling.
Taking my fattening frappuccino, I make my way back to the impending mess that some asshole has left for me.
Sure enough it’s a large woman in an electric wheelchair. Her grabber still in the air, frozen in time at the exact moment the Ragu dropped. Her eyes are locked in that of disbelief and awe by what just happened. She sees me and her look switches to anger. “You stock boys shouldn’t put the sauce so close to the edge. It could have killed me!”
I awkwardly smile and do my job, sweeping the broken glass into the dustpan. I don’t think she should be afraid of sauce killing her, I think she should be afraid of diabetes.
“It’s carelessness! A complete lack of care for the customers!” She rambles on. “It’s the apathy in your generation. I swear, my kids are just like you…”
I bite my tongue and nod along. If she only knew how little I cared. As I scrape up the rest of the sauce revealing the off-white checkered tiles I wonder what her shelf life is.

Working with my microfiber rag, the woman rolls away, and I’m left in the ambient music of Enya, watching myself wipe off the lacquer of the floor. My phone vibrates. Sitting back against the shelf in the deserted aisle, I watch the animated phone on my screen shaking back and forth, the name Sara next to it, and answer.

© 2007-2010, Nick Rester All rights reserved.