Yes, Mr. Kemian told me this stint would be "great experience" for me and would "help my resume," since I'd been looking for a full-time job with benefits for months as the U.S. economy slowly fought to emerge from the double-dip recession of the early 80s. Unemployment was still high in many states, including ours, but at this point in the week after four-straight fourteen-plus-hour days, I wasn't sure if I wanted any more experience or the help and if I didn't need rest more than he did.
Fortunately, while this was supposed to be the next-to-last night, I was hoping it would actually be the last one and I was looking forward to my "experience" being over. The Kemians would be returning early the following afternoon, a Friday, and I was almost certain he wouldn't be able to avoid coming in to check up on the store and the receipts. If he did, he'd probably let me go early, as much to avoid more overtime as to be helping me, and I'd either go home to collapse or finally get to go by to see Leslie, my girlfriend, who I'd barely seen all week.
Leslie had finally found a decent job after getting her associate's degree and enduring a long job search, so she'd dropped by the store for a few minutes after she got off work the first three days, but there'd been no privacy and none of our usual intimate fun. We'd been together for almost a year and had become quite adventurous in the bedroom and I was looking forward to our next session when I had time off. Unfortunately, she'd had plans for this evening and I missed seeing her very much. I loved her and planned to ask her to marry me soon, assuming I could find a good job to support us.
No, I decided, if Mr. Kemian were to send me home early tomorrow, the choice between sleep and Leslie would be an easy one. I could sleep when I was dead.
As the hands on the big clock up front edged nearer to closing time, I became a bit nervous. While Mr. Volcker and the folks at the Fed were slowly getting inflation under control and the economy back on track, crime in our city seemed to be getting rapidly worse by the day. In fact, there'd been several robberies and a murder in our part of town just since the Kemians had left for the beach. That concerned me, but, fortunately, Mr. K made it a practice of not accepting large bills and we made sure to keep the money in the till to a minimum during the day, making periodic deposits in the slot in the safe. I didn't know—or want to know—the safe's combination, but I was starting to get rather nervous about the amount of money I'd put into the slot over the past four days. I could only imagine the fun a guy with dynamite or a safecracker might have, the payoff he'd get, and the result on my fledgling career.
Because of that, I had Bryce and Callie, the evening employees, closely watching the front of the store while I worked the aisles, but by around 9, I moved up, adding my eyes to the mix. I discreetly observed the comings and goings in the store, keeping track of customers and making sure that those who entered left in a timely fashion. While I never want to be thankful for a lack of customers or sales, the dropoff after 9 was almost welcomed since when I locked up at 10 I wanted to make sure everyone was out promptly, that I could send the other two employees home before too long, and that I could complete the final cleanup and preparation for the next day in short order.
"A tidy, well-faced store helps drive sales," Mr. Kemian had said more times than I could count over the years. With most of the usual cleanup completed with few customers in the store, I'd spend an hour or so doing the facing effort after closing, pulling stock forward to be accessible and straightened to make it look like the shelves and doors were full even when they weren't. "Customers seeing lots of stock, or at least thinking they see lots of stock, tend to buy more," he'd say.
At precisely 10 PM, I locked the front door as the last customer left. Bryce and Callie did their part of the straightening effort, with Callie griping the entire time. "I'm a fucking cashier, not a stock clerk."
"You're Mr. K's employee and you're getting paid to do what he asks you to do. And he's asked you to do this before, though I'm also pretty sure fucking isn't part of that."
She gave me an evil look. "You'll get yours, Ned," she said before laughing and giving me a wink. While rather dour and foul-mouthed at times, she and Leslie had been school classmates and were still best friends; Callie had actually introduced us at the store a couple of years earlier and had even helped arrange our first date when Leslie and I eventually happened to be unattached at the same time. For those reasons, I suspected that Callie knew far more about what went on between Leslie and me than I'd have preferred. Bryce, on the other hand, didn't have a clue, going about his work much like an automaton as he usually did and barely hearing our discussion.
The clock read 10:32 when I unlocked the door to let them out; I was sure to check it so I could confirm their time cards. Bryce went out the door first and disappeared around the corner, with Callie exiting behind him. She stopped for a moment in the open doorway and turned to pat my cheek. "Have a fun evening, Ned. Don't work too hard."
My look turned to a frown, knowing, as she knew, that I wouldn't be getting any tonight. She laughed with her stupid cackle, making it all I could do to keep from calling her Bitchy-Poo or worse. Leslie had let it slip that Callie, with her bright red hair and laugh, had been nicknamed after the H.R. Puffenstuf character when they were little, but I'd modified the nickname in my mind, always—at least so far—holding my tongue to keep it from slipping out.
With the door relocked, it was back to the coolers for restocking and facing. The cooler was set about 40 degrees but I didn't bother to put on a jacket since I'd only be in there for a few minutes. I restocked milks, other dairy products, juices, eggs, and some other refrigerated items before doing a final check from the front, turning a few cartons and jugs the right way so the customers could read them.
"A tidy, well-faced store helps drive sales," I said, but using a half-decent imitation of Billie Hayes' Witchy-Poo voice. Well, maybe a good deal less than half-decent, but I was in a sour mood so I rounded up anyway.
With the coolers finally done at 11.09 instead of by 10:45 as I'd figured earlier in the evening, it was beginning to look like a fourteen and a half or fifteen hour day rather than a fourteen as originally hoped. It had to be done, though, so I made my way to the last scheduled item on the evening's agenda.
The freezers could only be restocked and faced from the front, so I grabbed the step stool and started my way down the aisle. Since they were stocked during the day, I pulled products from the back forward in each door and then faced the stock off evenly, standing on the stool for the top couple of racks so I could reach the back before doing the bottom shelves from the ground. The bottom shelf was so low that I had to get on the floor to reach the things in the back in some of the freezer cases.
By ten doors in, almost half way, my hands were freezing so I rubbed and blew on them for a bit before stepping back up on the step stool and starting on the top of Freezer 11. That's when I felt it, that gun in my back.
***
"So, ahem, what's your name?" demanded the robber, placing his hands on his hips like the superheroes on the Superfriends cartoons of my youth.
"Ned, ah, Ned Bentley. What's yours?" I asked, rather nervously.
The laugh caught me off guard, making me realize what I'd said, but there was something about it that was off. This laugh was involuntary and wasn't as deep as the voice or as before. Then again, I was facing the asshole now, unlike a short time earlier, so maybe I was just hearing it differently.
"Let's not worry about that detail, okay?" he said. "And let's not worry about the change-money, either. How 'bout we go in the back and see what you've got?"
Mr. Kemian kept quite a bit of stock in the back, but I couldn't think of anything of high value that would be easily transportable and would make it worth the robber's while. When he realized that, he'd end up wanting the change-money after all, which might give me a chance to trip the alarm. It wasn't connected to the police station or anything, but there was a loudspeaker outside so maybe someone nearby would hear it and call the police, from the noise factor, if nothing else. Of course, as soon as I did that, the robber would probably shoot me before running away, never to be seen again.
Or maybe he just wanted to take me to the back to shoot me; with the concrete block walls, no one would hear my shouts or the shot. I shivered at the thought as we walked that way.
Once in the stockroom, the robber gave a huff. "What a dump. There's not even a good place to sit down?"
His voice was a little more Mel, a little less Barry, higher pitched than before. And to sit down? Why would a robber want to sit down? I wondered.
He explained it a second later when, with his voice again gruff, he added, "Sit down, over there, on that stack of pallets."
