Weekends are the worst at [FUCK*MART]. Saturdays are busy all day and the store is never properly staffed. Sundays start off slow, then around noon pick up batshit crazy because all the Jesus lovers get out of church, then tapers off into another low around three or four.
With that particular day being a Saturday, I had to deal with the masses in all their white trash glory. I guess I should have an aside here: I don’t believe all [FUCK*MART] customers are white trash. I’ve been in some stores in other cities which were cleaner, or had more associates, or were just all around better, but the particular store I work at is white trash haven because the town where its located is a rural shit stain on the diarrhea streaked canvas of my home state. The majority of people are what you’d expect from a deeply rural locale, and [FUCK*MART] being what it is, caters to the poorest of the poor, so we as workers see the bottom of the barrel a large percentage of the time.
By the time I clocked in, Chloe’s more than halfway done with her shift; bars and Saturdays are apparently popular together. Go figure. She has some sort of deal where she’s able to be off by 6 on Saturdays, and not work until 3 on Sundays. I worked a 2-11 shift.
“You joining everybody tonight?” Chloe asked sometime before clocking out. One of our department’s favorite pastimes is going to Chloe’s bar and getting wasted. I sometimes go for the company despite not drinking. Not that I’m particularly close with any of them, mind you, but it gets me out of the apartment and the pretense of a social life.
“I don’t get off til late. Better not, if Winter comes I don’t wanna have to deal with her getting pissed off at you for ‘trying to steal me’ or whatever bullshit she spouts after a couple drinks.”
I heard a forced cough from behind me and groaned. Usually the jangle of keys is a telltale sign of Kelly’s approach. She’s our department manager, an angry bitch, and has been working with [FUCK*MART] for almost as long as I’ve been alive. Can you imagine how depressing her life must be, or how much she has to hate herself if I want to kill myself after only a few years? She’s been here close to a quarter of a decade: I can’t figure out how she hasn’t gone on a killing spree yet.
“If you’re gonna stand around all day I can find you a project to do,” Kelly told us, but said the words staring mostly at me. Her general responses towards everyone was one of disdain, but she hated me a little bit extra in comparison.
“No.... no.... I can keep myself preoccupied.”
“You better. If I catch you again you’ll be unloading truck tonight.”
Remember what I said about cashiering up front? Unloading truck is the worst in the store, no exception, from my perspective. It’s a punishment, through and through, and not even a disguised one. It’s made all the worse by severe chronic asthma, which goes untreated, because neither Winter or I have insurance and inhalers can expensive. The hustle of lifting heavy boxes, running frantically from spot to spot on the ground in hopes of matching them to where they need to go, and then repeating, sometimes for hours on end, is enough to work up an asthma attack. I am physically incapable of doing the tasks they force upon me, and unable to refuse them without getting fired, because I don’t have medical evidence of the issue in my work file... because they don’t pay me enough in order to afford a doctor visit. And if I had anything in such a file, I’d be fired for some reason or another, because I wouldn’t be useful enough to the store.
I busied myself with customers around every bend, answering their questions in detail, being the best damn box reader in the entire store. Do you have a question about a product we sell? Chances are, since we’re such a generic retailer, you won’t get any sort of specialist on the topic you’re wandering about; unless we somehow know about the product from personal use, what we know comes right off the box. But we’ll be damn sure to read it to you while pretending we aren’t.
Time tapered away, eventually leading to a lull. Every couple of minutes I spotted Kelly keeping an eye on me, waiting for me to slip up in order to banish me to the land of the backroom. With no one now meandering around the cash register, I went out in search of other customers. It didn’t take me long; I turned a corner, saw someone standing by phone chargers, and started, “Do you need any–” GODDAMMIT “–help?”
I literally felt my face shift from “how may I help you?” to “Seriously why the fuck are you here I hate you go away you stupid old man” because as I looked up from my feet to the customer it was an old man named Jeff. How do I know his name? Ignoring the fact he’s in here practically everyday for help with his cell phone and because of this you start to get on a first name basis, it may just be the giant ass belt buckle on his waist, proclaiming “JEFF” to the entire world in gaudy rhinestones.
He was a small man, not bald yet but hair shaved close to his head, and usually wore average clothes. Today, everything he wore was stained, wrinkled, and had the smell of days worth of cigarette smoke deeply embedded in the fabric.
This is the man I was referring to in yesterday’s journal. The fact of the matter is, every time he asks me for help with his phone, I will always refer him over to Gary or one of the other Connection Center associates. And every time this old coot sees me, he will walk straight past them in order to get my advice first. Every. Single. Time. For months. I cannot stress how strongly I am not exaggerating. [Winter has attested to the validity of this.]
“I need a charger for my phone,” he told me almost before I had the words out of my mouth. It was an instantaneous moment, but the power of the written word failed to capture it, and my rambling probably didn’t help either.
“We got plenty right here. Lemme see your phone for a sec.” I checked the plug-in port, flipped through our sparse collection, and came up with one almost immediately. The packaging was intelligent enough to let people fumble around with the tips, so I plugged it in. Perfect fit.
“This’ll do it.”
“It will?” He flipped the packaging over but didn’t read it.
“Yep.” I didn’t waste any time and walked back off towards the register. I’m usually not so rude, really. I didn’t want to be trapped with him for the next half hour though. If you’ve worked retail long enough you probably have some relatable customer or story. [Is this a self defense mechanism to avoid feelings of being a bad person?]
I helped another few customers afterwards, probably ate up an additional five minutes. Then I saw Jeff barreling down at me again. MotherFUCK you’re kidding me.
“Hey, I wanted to check... this will work with my phone, right?” The tip of the charger remained plugged into his phone still.
“Yep. Yeah, it definitely will. If for whatever reason it doesn’t, hold on to your receipt, bring it back within fourteen days, we’ll give a full refund or exchange.”
“Oh. Ah. OK, all right then. Thank you.”
“No problem.”
He lingered, causing me to stay put, trapped in his vision like a deer in the headlights, all signs of impending doom clearly coming at me, but I remained diligent, unable to completely recover, willing myself to move while waiting for the inevitable wreck to occur–
“What are you doing?” Kelly’s voice asked from off to the corner. I barely saw her, but oh sweet, atrocious Kelly, I could kiss you on the taint you miserable old bitch– “I need you to go help unload truck.”
“But–”
“No buts. Do it. Now.”
“For how long?”
“Until it’s done.”
***
Working until 11 is an odd form of punishment all on its own; third shift clocks in at 10, has their nightly meeting (or morning for them? Fuck, I don’t know how they treat things), and are out on the floor by 10:30. There is literally no reason for me to be here past then, but dearest Kelly does the schedule, and ensures I have the worst hours possible. Aside from butchering any hopes of a social life, anybody who steps foot in a [FUCK*MART] is either potentially psychotic, out of their mind on alcohol or drugs, desperate for an item, or any combination thereof. Always tread lightly past 8:30PM; the wackos come out then and won’t disperse until around 8 in the morning.
After the truck was unloaded, it only strengthened my resolve to find an out on life. It wasn’t going to get any better, I knew down to the marrow of my bones. This was what I had to look forward to, day in, day out, until I elapsed naturally. If not at this particular job, then one just as shitty. There is no escape for one such as me; too smart to be working under such conditions and fully aware of it, yet too stupid and lacking means to do anything about it. Don’t you see? A future with hope? There is no hope.
The rest of the night went by uneventfully, aside from me wheezing like a much shittier version of Darth Vader. I made it out of the store with relative ease, able to avoid most of the worst nightly offenders. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the clock or not; if a customer identifies you as a worker, they consider you their bitch until their petty issues are resolved.
When I made it home, I found Winter curled up on the couch, Chester on her lap, reading a book. The apartment reeked of hidden dog poop somewhere but she didn’t seem to notice.
“How was your day?” she asked cheerfully. So fucking cheerful. Ugh.
“Oh, you know. Same old stuff.” I sat down on the couch next to her and Chester started yipping away. God I wanted to throw that little fucker into the wall until he shut the hell up.
“That good, eh?” She sat up and leaned herself on me, all without disturbing her precious little dog. “We should do something, I missed you today.”
“Like what? I’m probably gonna fall asleep soon, it’s almost midnight.”
“We could watch a movie.” She leans over a little closer and pats me on the crotch. “Or....” she trailed off, trying to make it sensual, but really it was cheesy beyond tolerating. Still, I hadn’t touched myself today, so I wasn’t caught up in the catch 22 of being horny, being alone and unable to wait, then going to town on myself, and then ending up too tired to do anything later.... What I really wanted was some time to myself; today’s work day only reinforced my desire to end it all. But why not enjoy a moment before then?
“Oh yeah?” I pushed Chester off her lap and cupped one of her breasts. “I didn’t expect this....”
“Mmm.” She pressed her mouth to mine and the wetness of her lips annoyed me slightly. They were always moist, an unsettling sensation that I put up with for the greater good of boning. Jesus. Just stop licking your lips before every kiss, it’s not difficult. I tugged her shirt off after a minute or so and buried my chin in the crevasse of her neck. Our hands ran along each other’s bodies, clearly accustomed to the desires of the other. She contorted her body so her pantied crotch was inches from my face, revealing thin tufts of pubic hair from the sides. I hesitated at the sight; a little grooming goes a long way.
Time for another aside. I don’t know if all non-trimmed girls are like this or if Winter is an exception, but her vag is a smorgasbord of smells trapped in a bush of pubes. It’s a mix of musk and stale piss and fish all swirled together in a way that isn’t strong but still noticeable, the smell equivalent of an object viewed out of the corner of your eye; you’re aware of it, even if it doesn’t demand your full attention. I’m sure she’ll appreciate the analogy when this journal is discovered. It also... OK, so you know how after you shower, and you’re clean, but maybe somehow you accidentally touch your butthole when you’re drying off, and then forget about it, and then almost immediately thereafter accidentally sniff your hand? Sometimes it carries that particular smell, too. [You always find new and compelling ways to upset the people closest to you... and this is only a heralding grain of sand to the eventual hour glass flood.]
Regardless, I do what’s expected of me and remove her panties. I try to let my fingers do more work, but my face ends up buried in her. After a few minutes of her panting, she breathily whispers, “Get a condom?”
We race to the bedroom and I grab one; the retrieval of protection always serves as an involuntary reminder of why we’re still together, a flashback of two dumb college kids without legitimate cares in the world and a brilliant stroke of bad luck leading up to a couple of dropouts, thousands in medical bills, and a stillborn baby who couldn’t even give a tax deduction. Such a casual way to surmise why our lives are irrevocably fucked, isn’t it?
Anyways, we screwed, her on top for a while, then me, and I ended up going quick, if I’m gonna be completely honest. Such is usually the norm. What do I care, sharing it? I won’t be embarrassed when I’m dead. What with my asthma anyways, it’s hard to go long or I end up in a coughing spell which kills the mood quicker than a deflated erection.
We fall asleep tangled up in each other’s bodies, but my last thoughts for the night are still turned to how I should die.
***
