Of Crackheads and Convenience Stores

When I was eighteen, knocked up, and completing my third semester of twelfth grade (a long story that involves heroin addicts and library books I stole because I was a nerdy juvenile delinquent), I worked at a gas station. The gas station, commonly known as Town & Country Food Store 487, was run by a fellow Texan named Deedee.

Deedee looked about like a Texan named Deedee should, with horsey teeth, big jugs, and blonde hair teased into tomorrow. She worked the day shift with Myra, our assistant manager. They spent the day smoking cigarettes at the register, flirting with construction workers, and complaining about the way I refused to memorize the weekly sale PLU's.

An old man named Jerry covered most of the graveyard shifts. He ran out of gas and coasted his way into the parking lot every other day, and expected his coffee to be fresh when he arrived for duty. If it wasn't, he'd give me a cussing.

"I don't give a psychedelic FUCK if it was a lotto night! It doesn't take 2 minutes to make a fresh pot of coffee! Now, I'm tired gawddammit! I spend all day spraying produce at Albertson's and listenin' to that chickenshit manager they got over there, and I had two hours of sleep before I woke up to come to this shithole, and I don't think it's too much to ask for some fresh. fucking. coffee."

Jerry was infamous for tackling the few teenagers brave enough to attempt a beer-run on his watch. His eyes lit with a crazy fire when he told tales of scraping young faces on the pavement, and mocking their "baby" tears. He liked to wave the pilfered twelve packs in their sniveling faces and tell them to "spread the word! No beer-runs at Town & Country FUCKIN' Foodstore!"

This was in stark contrast with the other graveyard employee, Mark. Mark worked four jobs (three music stores and Town & Country) and slept in a friend's closet. He played tapes of Tom Waits or Throbbing Gristle at top volume, wore the store hardhat for fun, and encouraged customers to steal whatever they wanted, because that's what he was doing. He never paid for cigarettes or candy. The only things he wouldn't steal were our toiletries, which he used and returned to the shelf. This practice led to returns on tubs of Carmex tainted with Mark's dirty fingerprints and Right Guard deodorant sticks contaminated with his armpit hair. He locked the door at night so he could skateboard down the aisles, uninterrupted. On the few happy occasions Mark worked my shift, we would taste test every brand of a particular product, cigarettes one week, candy or drinks the next. We called it "product research and awareness", not stealing.

I worked second shift with a series of moody or insane people that lasted a few days at a time, leaving no impression other than a vague unpleasantness. There is only one stands out, a man I like to call Crackhead Joe, the Lotto Fiend With a Mullet....