Taking Stock (3 page)

“Eric Andrews.”

“Sheldon Mason.”

He motions to the chair behind me. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

I sit.

Frank folds his hands and gazes down at them. “Eric is the Meat manager. We have openings in both the Meat and Grocery departments. The Grocery manager is Ralph Thompson, who isn’t in today.”

“I could really use him in Meat,” Eric says. “I’d work him hard.” He grins down at me with a mouth full of teeth.

“Both positions are full-time,” Frank says.

“There’s a chance of getting promoted, in the Meat department,” Eric says. “If you work out, I’ll make you a meat cutter. There’s a pay increase.”

I swallow. Eric is standing very close.

“It’s up to you,” Frank says.

“I’m a good boss,” Eric says. He places a hand on my shoulder, so sweaty it soaks through my t-shirt.

“I’m sure you are,” I say. “But—”

Eric raises his eyebrows.

With his hand still on my shoulder, I try not to breathe too deeply. I cannot work for this man. He freaks me out.

“I’m a vegetarian,” I say.

Eric’s smile vanishes. “What?”

“I don’t eat meat.”

“You don’t have to eat it.”

“I can’t work with meat. It’s against my principles.”

“There’s meat in the Grocery department, too.”

For a moment, I hesitate. “It’s in cans. It’s different if you can’t see it.”

Eric looks at Frank, who shrugs. Eric looks back at me, eyes narrowed.

“Well. Enjoy yourself in Grocery.”

Chapter Two

I find a Spend Easy guy in Aisle Two. He’s a little taller than me, with shaggy black hair, and scruff shadowing his cheeks. I wouldn’t say he looks messy—at least, he’s the kind of messy I imagine girls finding attractive.

He’s slowly taking cans of dog food from a cardboard box and arranging them on the shelf. The box sits on a metal trolley. As I draw near, he glances at me with bored eyes.

“Working hard?” I say.

“Depends. By the standards of Bangladesh, definitely not. But by this country’s standards? I’m overtaxing myself. Soon time to take a break.”

A middle-aged man approaches us holding a can of carrots. “I don’t need this many carrots,” he says. “Do you have a smaller can than this?”

“Beats me,” my new co-worker says.

“Aren’t you even going to look?” the man says.

“I’ll look,” I say.

“You stay out of this,” my new co-worker says. He’s wearing a gold ring on the middle finger of his left hand. He’s twisting it with his right.

The customer furrows his brow. “Could one of you please do your job?”

“My job, old man,” my new co-worker says, “is to put these cans on this shelf, and to remain sane despite incessant customer bitching.”

The man’s face is turning red, and so, I think, is mine. “What’s your name, you little brat?”

“Can you read?” He points to his nametag, which reads “Ernest.”

“Okay, Ernest. You’ll regret your treatment of me. I’ll be having a chat with your manager, and you’ll be out a job if I have anything to say about it.”

“Go right ahead.” Ernest takes something from his pocket. “Here’s his business card.” Ernest flicks it. The card spins through the air and hits the man in the chest. He flinches. “Say hi to him for me,” Ernest says.

The man picks the card off the floor, glowers at Ernest, and storms out of Aisle Two.

“Um,” I say.

“What an asshole,” Ernest says. He nods at the yellow shirt I’m holding. “So, you’re the new Grocery boy?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. They’re getting quick.”

“Sorry?”

“I said they’re getting quick. They just sacked John two hours ago, and now they’ve hired his replacement already.”

I wonder what John had to do to get fired.

“Frank said to find a stock boy to show me around,” I say. “He said there’s a video I should watch?”

“What’s your name?”

“Sheldon.”

“I’m Gilbert.”

“I thought your name was Ernest.”

“What gave you that idea?”

“Your nametag says Ernest.”

“That’s because this is Ernest’s nametag.”

He turns and starts walking toward the rear of the store. He pauses, and glances back at me. “Were you recently a patient in a psychiatric ward?”

I struggle to keep my shock from registering on my face. “No. Why do you ask?”

“You’re wearing Velcro sneakers.”

*

When Sam brought me the Velcro shoes, I asked him how he got to the hospital. He doesn’t have a car—at least, I’ve never seen one in the driveway.

It turns out he walked.

“Why did you walk an hour to visit someone you don’t know? Why’d you buy me this stuff? I was going to kill myself in your shed.”

“Our shed.”

“Why are you doing this? I can’t repay you.”

“You will repay me. For the book, the sneakers, and the ambulance ride. But don’t worry—I can wait till you find a job, and my interest rates aren’t that high.”

My debt mounted quickly. Sam was feeding my cat, and he said in a couple days, rent day, he intended to pay it for me. He’d tell the landlord I was out of town, which was technically true. The hospital’s in the city—we live in the next town.

It’s occurred to me a couple times that maybe I should find it weird that Sam is helping me so much.

*

The girl in the video wears a t-shirt with Spend Easy written across it, but it’s bright blue instead of yellow. She’s walking past shelves filled with canned goods, and she speaks with the kind of enthusiastic condescension you can only get away with in safety videos.

“Hey there! My name is Sandy. I’m a Grocery worker, just like you! My experience with the Spend Easy chain of supermarkets has been both enjoyable and rewarding, and I just know you’ll feel the same. But don’t get carried away! Every job has its potential safety hazards, and Grocery is no different. The last thing we want is for you to end up with a fractured skull!”

The scene switches to a warehouse, where a tall, gangly guy is reaching up to place a cardboard box on a shelf.

Enter Sandy. “This is my co-worker, Stan. Say hi, Stan!”

“Hi, there.”

“Stan is about to help me demonstrate an important safety rule.”

Stan scratches his head. “I am? What rule is that, Sandy?”

The camera zooms in on the box Stan just put on the shelf, which tips forward, dumps three packages of macaroni noodles on his head, and settles back onto the shelf.

“You’re never supposed to place product above eye level, Stan!” Sandy says, and skips away, leaving Stan rubbing his head.

Next, Sandy’s in a parking lot, pushing shopping carts past rows of parked cars. A truck screeches to a halt a meter away from her. The driver leans out his window and shouts, “Why don’t you watch where you’re going, lady!”

Sandy wags a finger at him. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going, mister! I’m wearing a bright orange safety vest with yellow reflectors, as per safety regulations!”

Gilbert steps forward and turns off the TV. “Anyway. You get the idea, right?”

“I guess.”

“Sandy is a lie, by the way. There are no girls in Grocery.”

“Why not?”

“There just aren’t.”

The warehouse is accessed through a set of red swinging doors. We’re in a tiny office to the right of them. The warehouse has walls and floor of cracked concrete. Towers of cardboard boxes sit on wooden pallets all around, and still more boxes sit on carts like the one Gilbert left in Aisle Two. A metal rail runs along the walls, low to the floor, and the space between is overflowing with litter.

“Is Ernest working today?” I ask.

“Nope.”

“So, what if that customer calls Frank and says ‘Ernest’ mistreated him today? Won’t Frank figure out what really happened?”

“Oh, are you concerned for my welfare? Trying to save me from myself?”

“I didn’t—”

“Frank never knows who’s working. If he gets a complaint about Ernest, he’ll do what he always does—call the fat fucker to the office and tell him off.”

Gilbert directs me up a staircase farther into the warehouse, to the washroom for male employees, where I change into the Spend Easy shirt. Then we head back toward the sales floor.

“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.”