Taking Stock (11 page)

Murmured agreement—from the cashiers, mostly.

“The store has to be kept neat and tidy. We all need to make sure our uniforms are tucked in. And if you don’t know the policies, you need to learn them, or you won’t be able to do your job effectively. Earlier this week there was an altercation over prices, between an employee and a customer. The customer found a price tag for a product that was on sale the week before. The tag should have been changed, but our policy is that if the customer sees a product listed for a reduced price, they get it for that price. The customer knew our policy, and the employee didn’t. If the employee had known the policy, that argument could have been avoided.”

Ernie whispers something in Ralph’s ear. Ralph hesitates, then hands him the receiver, looking uncertain. Ernie stares into the crowd. At first I think his gaze is on me, but then I realize he’s looking behind me, to my right. At Brent.

“We also have a policy against throwing cardboard in the dumpster.”

“Shut up, Ernie,” Brent says.

Frank is standing a couple feet into Aisle Four, staring out the windows. “Quiet down,” he shouts.

“When you throw out recyclable material, you do the public a disservice,” Ernie says. “You actually do the planet a disservice. No one is coming to save humanity, you guys. We have to look out for ourselves. We’re running up against all kinds of environmental limits, here, and if we keep going the way we’re going, we won’t have any home left to live on. Earth will become just an empty ball of dirt, circling the sun forever.”

Ernie lowers the phone to his chest and looks at us, solemn-faced. The silence is complete.

Ralph takes the phone back. “So, um, some of us need to catch up on store policy, but it isn’t all doom and gloom. Spend Easy’s a good place to work, with employees who are lots of fun. Obeying store policy doesn’t mean we can’t have a good time together.”

Jack walks over and holds his hand out for the phone receiver.

“There are cameras now,” he says. “Working cameras. Breaking store policy will carry consequences, sometimes severe ones. You may have heard about the recent incident with the Produce order. Such transgressions will now warrant immediate termination.”

He hands the receiver back to Ralph and walks back to the group of Produce workers.

Tommy comes forward and whispers something in Ralph’s ear. Ralph shakes his head. Tommy goes back to where he was standing.

Ralph lifts the receiver again. “There’s only one more thing to mention before we can all go home. Employee theft is becoming a big problem. We knew it was happening before, but it’s really escalated in the last year or so. Like Jack said, we now have the means to document it. If any employee is caught stealing, he will be fired immediately. No second chances. We will also consider showing the footage to the police.” He smiles. “Thanks for coming, everyone. You’re a great crew, and I look forward to working with you well into the future. Brent: Frank and I need to speak with you in the store office.”

The employees start to disperse. I glance at Brent, who hasn’t moved. He’s frowning.

I look down Aisle Three. A couple meters in, Gilbert is sitting on a cart, expressionless. He meets my gaze until I look away.

*

“It’s going to rain in your living room,” Sam says, leaning with a hand on the door frame. He has no coat on. His top three shirt buttons are undone, and his hair sticks every which way. He reeks of pot and liquor.

“Aren’t you cold?” I say. “Come in.”

“Can’t. Your cat will agitate my allergies.”

“Are you drunk?”

Sam grins. “Yeah.”

“It’s Monday.”

“When you sell dope, the weekend never ends.” He burps. “You should really check your living room. You’re going to need buckets. Lots of buckets.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Been asking the landlord to replace the toilet for months.”

“Okay...”

“It overflows.”

“Do you own a plunger?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t realize it was happening until it already happened. Normally, I check the bathroom a couple minutes after I flush. I didn’t this time, because I’m drunk. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

He rests a hand heavily on my shoulder. “Get the buckets. Hurry!”

I get garbage containers from my bedroom and bathroom, emptying them into the big kitchen garbage. But there are more leaks than I have buckets. I’m going to need the dish pan too, and the new litter box I bought Marcus Brutus, and the margarine container from the fridge. Luckily there isn’t much margarine left.

Sam is still standing outside my open door. “We have contained the crisis,” he says. “Now we must go to the source.”

‘We’ didn’t contain anything.

I follow him to his apartment. He reaches underneath the steps and drags out a flower pot filled with rocks. He holds up one of them. “This is a fake rock, with a key inside. If this happens again and I’m not here, use it.”

I follow him up the steps. “Leave your shoes on,” he says. We walk through the living room, past a multitude of empty beer bottles, and through his bedroom, stopping short of the bathroom, where the flooding is a couple centimetres deep. “Wait here,” he says. “We need the mop.”

I wait in his bedroom, feeling a little weird about being here. It’s not as cluttered as the living room. In fact, I’d call it downright Spartan. The twin-sized bed is the only piece of furniture. I wonder where he keeps his weed. Maybe in the closet.

Once the mopping’s finished, Sam insists on compensating me for my trouble with several beers and assorted other alcoholic beverages. The landlord will take care of any water damage to my apartment, he says. We end up on the couch playing video games.

He beats me in a couple rounds of Super Smash Bros. I put down the controller. “I need a breather.” I pick up my beer, and we drink in silence for a few minutes.

“Today’s my birthday,” he says.

“It is? Sam, you should have told me.”

“Maybe if I had a Facebook account, you’d have known. That’s how you 20-year-olds remember birthdays nowadays, right?”

“I don’t have Facebook either. I’m sorry I didn’t know.”

“It’s fine. I was just making a dumb joke.”

I sip from my beer.

“So, did you do anything today?” I say. “To celebrate?”

He holds up his drink. “Just this.”

“Did anyone call?”

“My customers don’t know it’s my birthday, and I don’t talk to my family, other than my cousin. They’re closed-minded people.” He tosses back the rest of his drink. “My cousin probably forgot.”

“How old are you?”

“37.”

That’s how old Mom was.

I stay until it isn’t his birthday anymore, and a few hours past that, since I don’t have work tomorrow. I’m about to leave when Sam puts his arm around my shoulder, and slurs something about what a good friend I am. He invites me to crash at his apartment, but I tell him I can make it to mine. I’m not that drunk, I say, trying to make a joke out of it.

His arm is still around my shoulder. He shakes me, and calls me a good friend again. I thank him. He asks if I want to stay and smoke some pot. I tell him he’s drunk. He wouldn’t offer that to me, sober.

He puts his hand on my thigh, and says it’s time for me to try some weed. He says to sit right here and he’ll go pack his pipe.

I tell him I’m going home.

*

My mother and I believed in chance, not fate—coincidence, not design. So when we began to notice the number 37 appearing in our lives again and again, we made a joke of it. “God is trying to tell us something,” she would say. “We need to start going to church.”

I was born at 3:37 AM. My grandmother’s house was 3700 square feet.  There were 37 entrants in the short story contest I won in high school. 37 appeared in both our social insurance numbers. You got 37 when you added our birthdays together. 37s seemed to appear on license plates an unusual amount, and when we looked at clocks, it always seemed to be the 37th minute.

It’s a classic example of confirmation bias, of course—the tendency to favour information that supports a pre-existing belief. In this case, the belief was that a number appeared in our lives with unusual frequency. Subconsciously, we probably ignored the numbers that weren’t 37.

Over the last few months, I’ve been noticing a lot of 37s.

It was 12:37 when patients started showing up for the information session in the TV room. The nurses held these on Tuesdays right after lunch, and this was the second I’d attended. They usually filled up early, because most of us had nothing better to do. This particular session was about getting enough sleep.

At 12:40 they brought in extra chairs to form a circle around the room. It didn’t start for another 20 minutes, yet there were already seven people there. Fred sat across from me, on a couch with room for no one else. Rodney was to his right, scowling at nothing in particular. The Professor sat in an armchair to my left. Methuselah walked around the room, asking everyone if they’d ever had sex with a man.

“Have you ever had sex with a man?” he asked the Professor.

“I have not.”

“Have you ever had sex with a man?” he asked Fred.

“Nope.”

“Have you had sex with a man?” he asked Rodney.

“Do you wanna get punched?

“Is that a yes?”

“Get out of my face.”

“Have you ever had sex with a man?” he asked the skinny girl Fred pointed out to me my second day here.

“That’s really none of your business.”

Two nurses came in before Methuselah got to me with his query, and he sat down. One nurse introduced herself as Brianne, the other, Margaret. “Today, we’ll be talking about getting enough sleep,” Brianne said. “Proper sleep habits are important, especially for those dealing with mental illness.”

The Professor raised his hand.

“Yes, Richard?”

“True statements are merely those consistent with the dominant paradigm.”

“Thank you, Richard. But that’s not what we’re discussing today.”

“I only mean to suggest that perhaps we’re patients here because we don’t share your worldview.”

“I’m not really qualified to comment on that.”

Methuselah raised his hand.

“Yes, Gregory?”

“I had a bad dream last night.”

“Was it about boning a dude?” said Rodney.

“That’s inappropriate, Rodney,” Margaret said. “If I have to say that again, I’m going to ask you to leave.”

“Dreamers are a dime a dozen,” the Professor said.

When I left the meeting, I found Sam waiting at one of the cafeteria tables, talking to Methuselah, who’d reached him first.

“Have you ever had sex with a man?” he asked Sam.

Sam placed a hand on his shoulder. Methuselah’s whole body went rigid, and he grimaced, but he didn’t pull away.

“It doesn’t matter,” Sam said.

Chapter Ten

I’m three hours into an eight-hour shift when Gilbert finds me in Aisle Two and asks me to take my first break. “I need to talk to you. Away from here.”

I punch out, and he drives me to a nearby cafe. He gets us both coffees. We sit next to a window.

“They fired Brent,” he says.

“For theft?”

“Yeah. Ralph practically announced they were going to do it at the staff meeting. Without actually saying it, since that would be illegal.” He sips his coffee. “They’re crafty. They’re using scare tactics.”

I clear my throat. “I guess Frank really does watch the cameras.”

He shakes his head. “I’m telling you, Sheldon, no one’s able to stomach security footage long enough to find anything useful. It’s all Ernie. Yes, they caught Brent stealing a bag of Ringolos. But Ernie was working that night.”

“Maybe the answer is not to steal.”

“Okay, Sheldon, yes. Getting caught stealing is a bad idea, we can both agree on that. But is it right, the way Frank’s going about this? Spying on us? Barely investigating when you told him Jack locked you in the freezer?”

“I didn’t tell him it was Jack. I don’t know who—”

“The point is, it’s pretty clear what Jack said was true. Frank really is planning to fire the entire Grocery staff. And in some cases, yes, he has cause. A lot of us have been slacking. I know I have. And stealing—he’s right about that, too. But what reason does he have to fire a worker like you?”

I shake my head, saying nothing.

“And what about Paul?” Gilbert says. “Or Casey?”

“It wouldn’t make any sense.”

“Exactly. But Sheldon, I don’t want to get fired either, and like I said, I know Frank has cause. I’m planning on working harder. And from now on, I’m going to pay for everything I eat.”

“You are?”

“I think we all should. For some reason, Frank’s chosen to demonize Grocery. We should stand up to that.”

I work with him the next order night—the night he begins a case count, and uses the Sheldon Mason Five Case Approach for the first time. He beats my records, both for cases per hour and total cases in one night. Casey, who I’ve never seen slow down, actually stops working and stares the first time Gilbert speeds past him.

Ernie’s on tonight too, and once the initial shock of Gilbert’s newfound industriousness passes, he tries to catch up, piling boxes onto his cart as fast as he can and throwing his weight against it. 10 minutes later, he’s sweating and panting. For the rest of the shift he’s even slower than usual.

I think Gilbert may be right about Ernie. He doesn’t actually work very hard—his value to Frank must stem from his willingness to sell out his co-workers. He still gets called to the store office, but I doubt it’s to answer for wrongdoings Gilbert committed in his name. No, I suspect Frank and Ernie discuss other things.

The next night Donovan is fronting, and he’s working at least twice as hard as I’ve ever seen him work. I ask him about it, and he says that after speaking with Gilbert, and praying, he’s found that working harder just feels right. “Jack thinks Produce has a monopoly on hard work,” he says. “But the only true monopoly is God’s.”

Another shift, I push my empty cart into the warehouse to find Gilbert, Casey, and Paul gathered around a pallet stacked waist-high with product. There’s a broken-off broomstick stuck into a box of toilet paper, with a rotten watermelon skewered at the top. There are little half-moons carved out for eyes, and a thin slash for a mouth. Stinking juice runs down the broomstick. Chunks of the melon’s scooped-out innards are scattered all around the pallet.

“Is this shit for real?” Casey says. “We gotta clean this up?”

“We should tell Frank,” Paul says.

Gilbert shakes his head. “That’s what Jack wants us to do. There are no cameras covering this part of the warehouse. We can’t prove anything, and nothing would satisfy Jack more than for us to run crying to Frank.”

I speak up. “There would be footage of Jack bringing the melon to the warehouse.”

They all turn. “There are ways of doing it undetected,” Gilbert says. “Jack might have hidden it in a box, which he brought here under the guise of throwing in the dumpster. He’s too clever to be caught so easily.”

“What are we going to do to him, then?” Casey says.

Gilbert looks around at us. “This isn’t just about Jack being an asshole. Frank supports Jack in pretty much everything he does.  They think we’re untrustworthy, and they want us all fired. Jack said so, to Sheldon.”

Paul and Casey look at me, and I give a reluctant nod.

“But if we work hard,” Gilbert says, “to front the shelves, reduce the overstock, and get orders out quickly, there’s nothing they can do to us. If we work hard, and Frank tries to fire anyone with the case counts and the cameras proving we’re working hard, we can sue him for wrongful dismissal.”

Gilbert’s on a mission: outperform Produce, he says, and keep our eyes peeled for them to slip up. If we’re lucky, maybe it will be our hard work that gets Jack fired.

He convinces Tommy that some things are worth working hard for, even if the sun is going to explode in 37 days.

He tells Matt that everyone’s been talking about what a slacker he is.

“But I know I’m lazy.” Matt says. “I said that already!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Gilbert says. “People are still talking.”

“Christmas is coming,” Gilbert tells us, “and Frank won’t want to rock the boat at such a busy time. We should make a pact. If Frank fires a guy in Grocery, we all threaten to quit unless he hires him back.”

Something unexpected happens, too. A customer finds a shrew baked into bread she bought from our store. It’s on the local news, and a newspaper runs a picture.

But the news doesn’t mention our store by name, and Ralph quietly asks us not to discuss it outside work.

“We’re untouchable, now,” Gilbert says. “Frank won’t want to piss us off.”

Gilbert warns us not to repeat anything he says to the new guys—especially not Randy. They work hard anyway, and Gilbert is convinced Randy was hired to spy for Frank. They might all be spies, he says.

“I think Randy’s more focused on looking for a girlfriend than spying,” I say. “Lesley-Jo says he keeps bringing the cashiers food.”

Gilbert says nothing, but a couple hours later he finds me in Aisle One, restocking Javex. “You were right about Randy,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“For sure. Come see who he’s hitting on now.”

He leads me to the end of the aisle and points to the first cash register. Randy’s leaning against the counter near the shopping bags, laughing about something with Cassandra. She pushes him lightly. Randy’s grin widens.

“Something wrong?” Gilbert says.

“No. Why?”

*

Casey is moved by Gilbert’s newfound work ethic. After witnessing Gilbert’s success using the Five Case Approach, he reduces the number of cases he takes out, and seems pleased with the results. It’s getting him more miles per gallon of coffee. He zooms around even quicker than before.

Everyone’s surprised at Gilbert’s turnaround—including Ralph. He asks me if I think it’s for real, or if Gilbert will start slacking off again in another week.

“Seems sincere,” I say.

Ralph turns back to the computer, shaking his head. “And I thought I’d seen it all.”

One night, I enter the warehouse to find Casey standing at the desk, shaking even more than usual, trying to hold a pen steady with his left hand while blood streams down his right.

“God, Casey, what happened? Let me see.”

“Wait!” He motions with his injured hand for me to stay back, and screams.

“Jesus.” The top of his index finger is split wide open, and blood pulses out. I glance at Casey’s cart, which sits nearby, and I know what happened. Casey put up half a case of cereal, and he was cutting off the empty half so the box would fit better on the overstock racks. I picture him in Aisle Four, moving in his jerky, caffeinated way, not paying attention, and then—

“Why’d you bring your cart back after you cut yourself?” I say.

“I couldn’t leave it there fucking covered with blood!”

I pick up his box cutter, which is lying on a case of pancake mix. “Casey, this is razor sharp.”

“I sharpen it every shift.” He sounds close to tears. He picks up his coffee from the desk, chugs from it, and slams it down, spilling some. He continues trying to use the pen.

“What are you writing?”

“Took a bandage from the First Aid kit. Supposed to record everything we take.”

“Go to the bathroom and wrap your finger. I’ll take care of this. Give me the pen. Is there anyone who can drive you to the hospital? You’re gonna need stitches.”

He gives me his roommate’s cell number and heads to the washroom. I dial, and the phone rings six times. I’m about to hang up when someone answers.

“Yeah?”

In the background, the buzz of conversation.

“Hi, my name’s Sheldon. I work with Casey at Spend Easy, and he needs someone to drive him to the hospital. He cut himself pretty bad.”

“Why don’t you drive him?”

“Me? I don’t drive.”

Casey’s roommate sighs. “Well, I don’t feel like driving him either.”

“You don’t feel like it?”

“I’m not his chauffeur, okay? I’m his roommate. Is he dying, or something? Can he still pay rent?” Someone laughs in the background. “If he bleeds to death, I’ll have to post another ad.”

“He’s going to need stitches.”

“I can’t drive. I’m drinking. Mitch, pour me a shot of that. Pass that here.” There’s a slurping sound. “I’m drinking, dude.”

I hang up.

Casey comes down the stairs, cradling his hand. “What did he say?”

“Uh, he’s busy. Is there anyone else?”

Lesley-Jo walks through the red doors and comes around the corner. Her eyes widen when she sees Casey. “Oh my God, are you okay?”

“He needs stitches.”

“Do you have someone to bring you to Emergency?” she says.

Casey’s bottom lip is quivering.

“You poor thing! Come with me, I’ll take you. It’s not very busy. They can do without me for a half hour. Sheldon, can you tell them where I’m going?”

I nod. Casey gets his coat from a pallet and gingerly pushes his injured appendage through a sleeve. He follows Lesley-Jo through the red warehouse doors.

*

Paul says he’s halfway through his first draft, and he asks me to come to his house and have a look at what he’s written. I’m not sure how he knows he’s halfway without having finished the book, but I decide not to ask.

He lives in a large two-story house with his parents. “They’re vacationing, right now,” he says. “I’m having a Christmas party while they’re away—gonna invite people from Spend Easy. Doesn’t seem like Frank’s throwing a staff party, so I figure I might as well. You should come.”

“Sure.” It will be my first party ever, but I don’t tell Paul that.

He offers me a drink from the bar he says his dad installed last year. I take a beer, and he leads me to what used to be his video games room. “It’s my writing room, now. All the time I used to spend gaming—probably six hours a day—I write fiction instead. I gave up my blog, and my journal, too.”

“You write six hours every day?”

“Yeah. I tend to get obsessive about stuff.”

There’s a tiny desk, in the shape of a quarter circle, shoved into the corner. His manuscript’s the only thing on it. I walk over, pick it up, and settle into an armchair.

Paul sits across the room, watching me read. I pretend not to notice. After a couple pages, I chuckle, and he says, “What made you laugh?”

I clear my throat. “Um, the part with the employee who’s told he looks like Toby Maguire, so he starts acting like him. I like what Saul says—that the guy basically copied and pasted Maguire’s personality.”

Paul smiles. “Cool. Thanks.”

I try to continue reading, but I’m having trouble concentrating. Paul’s manuscript feels so bulky in my hands. How many words is this? Have I written this many words in my life?

I told Bernice I wanted to improve my confidence, in order to write more. I feel like I’m doing a bit better, socially, but I haven’t written a word. Seeing Paul dive straight into novel writing, unflinching, and get this far this fast…something about that makes me angry.

I pretend to read a few pages more and then I toss the manuscript back on the desk. “I’m impressed, Paul. It isn’t complete garbage.”

His smile falters.

I head for the porch. As I’m putting on my coat and sneakers, he thanks me for coming over.

“Sure,” I say. Before I leave, I get the urge to say something nice. I feel sort of lousy. But I can’t think of anything. “I’ll see you at the party.”