Larry's Training Day

The following is a selection from a short story I have been writing. It is told from another character's point of view. Steinbeckian Intro, Madeline The Sniffer and Everyday is Halloween are the previous selections featured here, which you can read by clicking through the archives.

“Natural Ice is our best selling twelve pack. It’s brewed by Anheuser Busch, which makes it an American beer. People are really into that now.”

“Okay, Larry,” she said, “I can read.”

“Oh,” I said, “Of course you can, you’re very smart.”We stood there, in the cooler, looking at each other. She was rubbing her hands up and down her crossed arms to warm up.

I had my hand on my chin, rubbing stubble. I was stalling. I always rub my chin when I play poker with the guys and trying to figure out what to do next. They always yell at me to hurry up. It was getting cold in the cooler and all she was wearing was that bodysuit. What was she thinking? If Sayed saw her, he’d kick right her out of here. It wouldn’t be right, but he’d probably bellow, “No whores in my store.” Hey, that kinda rhymes. Neato. But I guess it being Halloween and all; it would be okay. I started to think about whether or not she was wearing any underwear.

“Larry! It’s freezing in here!”

“Oh,” I said, “Well, let’s just go on out through these.”

I held the rubbery panels for her and she pushed through the door.

“Jesus, I hope I don’t have to spend a lot of time in there.”

“No, José spends the most time in here doing restocking.”

“Then why did you take me in there?”

“Oh. Well, I don’t know. Just showing you around.”

She stood with her hand on her hip and looked angry. She sniffed again. I wondered about that sniff of hers. She looked a bit like a squirrel or a chipmunk, you know how when you see them twitch their nose, and the rest of their little faces moves with the twitch, that’s sort of what it looked like when this girl, Madeline, when she sniffed. She looked like a squirrel trying to make out a smell.

That sniffing thing was just about the only thing about her that wasn’t very attractive. Even the black hair and the funny looking makeup worked somehow. Must be a pretty girl under all that stuff. I never really understood those Goth kids. Some of them come in here and act like they’re Dracula or I don’t know who they want to be, but this one seemed different somehow.

“You know,” I said, and shut the door to the cooler. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a young lady work here before. Have we then Cy?”

Cy’s hands went up in the air and he muttered something. I don’t know what he said, but I figured he wasn’t disagreeing. Half the time, when I’m standing right across from him I can barely hear what he has to say. If he wants to set something straight though, you can bet he will, and he sure can yell. Cy has been the manager here for years. He’s worked here longer than anyone. Even the boss, Sayed, he got trained by Cy.

Story goes that in Iran, where Sayed is from, he worked as a street performer, with a group. He was a juggler. I imagine it a lot, Sayed fifteen years ago, maybe he has less gray in his hair, maybe he is thinner, but he still has this bulldog of a face. His skin is painted white and maybe he has one of those red foam balls for a nose and big red circles on his cheeks and a clown outfit, except, thing is, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Sayed smile. Not once. Maybe that’s why he stopped performing.

He bought Miska’s dirt cheap, made Cy manager, and wanted to work the different jobs so he knew what to expect from people. Then he hired a lot friends of friends, all Persian guys for a while, guys he knew he could trust, because if they worked him over, he could ruin their reputation in the community. I’m not sure why he hired me. Maybe he wanted to practice his English.

“Are you serious? You’re saying you’ve never, ever, ever, had a woman work here?” She waited for my response. I slowly shook my head from side to side. She talked so fast that the green half of her lips seemed to be doing all the talking, while the purple half sat still. “That’s so messed up. You could get into big trouble if someone reported you. Aren’t there a lot of lawyers in this neighborhood? I’m surprised you could get away with something like that.”

“Well, it’s not as though we don’t like women, right Cy?” I walked back over to the counter and sat on the stool. “Women don’t exactly come out of their way to work here. Hell, most of our customers are men. No offense, but I can’t figure out why Sayed agreed to hire you. This job looks easy, but there’s a lot of lifting and unpacking, some days it’s—well, I can say this because I’ve worked here for seven years—some days, it’s brutal.”

Her face sniffed. “Are you saying a woman couldn’t handle this job? That a woman is too weak to do it?” “What kind of macho chauvinistic bullshit is that? No offense Larry,” she paused with a sniff. “But you don’t strike me as the kind of buff guy who could lift a lot of shit without the help of a dolly rig, which is probably what I’ll use anyway. Got some muscles under that plaid shirt I can’t see?”

I laughed. I hadn’t lifted anything since I threw my back out two years ago.

Cy grunted. I knew what that meant. He was about to talk. The grunt cleared his throat, and the words were being picked, and he would say one thing to end the whole conversation, like he always did, which was probably why he was the manager, because squabbling never really personally bothered him, he just knew it was bad for business.

“Enough.” Cy’s hands slid off his belly and he held them out like a set of scales. “You talk,” he said to me, with his left hand. To her, with his right hand, “You listen.”