Town & Country FUCKING Foodstore, Pt. 1

When I was eighteen, knocked up, and completing my third semester of twelfth grade, I worked at a gas station. The station, commonly known as Town & Country #487, sat at the edge of an aging suburb, a squat brown building that smelled of cigarettes, dirty mop water, and microwave burritos. Across the cracked parking lot, the dilapidated car wash was a hotbed of drug activity and fist fights.

The customers were down and out, most of them drifters from the motel across the street (LOW WEEKLY RATES!), scraping their pennies together to buy scratch off lottery tickets, forties, and the generic cigarettes we kept in a barrel at the front counter. The more permanent motel residents skittered across the street to buy our over-priced boxes of Fruity Pebbles, watery pressed ham, and travel size toiletries. To them, the grocery store one block over was too big and brightly lit. A caravan of gypsies, no longer welcome at the grocery store due to their habit of staging slip and fall accidents, frequented the store to steal sardines and hex the employees.

DeeDee, the store manager, looked like a Texan named DeeDee should, a sassy, gum-snapping bottle-blond with horsey teeth, big jugs poured into a tight t-shirt, her hair back-combed and teased into next week. She worked the day shift with Myra, the dumpy, freckled assistant manager. They spent the day smoking cigarettes at the register, pushing out their tits to impress the construction workers and cops that came for the complimentary sodas, their downtime filled complaining about my refusal to spend hours “facing” the cooler so the drink labels faced the same way.

Jerry, a bulldog of an old man, worked graveyard. He had thin red hair that he scraped over his bald spot, and fists that never unclenched. Constantly broke, he ran out of gas and coasted his way into the parking lot once a week, announcing his arrival by jumping out to kick the tires and scream furiously at his rusty Buick’s betrayal.

Jerry worked two jobs to pay for his quadriplegic sister’s medical expenses, and he demanded that I prepare fresh coffee before he arrived for duty. If the coffee wasn't ready, he'd give me a cussing.

"I don't give a psychedelic FUCK if it was a lotto night and you were busy! It doesn't take two minutes to make a fresh pot of coffee! Now I'm tired gawddammit! I spent all day spraying produce at Albertson's and listening to that chickenshit manager they got over there. I had two hours of sleep before I got up to come to this shithole, and I don't think it's too much to ask that you prepare me some FRESH. FUCKING. COFFEE."

“Jerry, go fuck yourself. It only takes two minutes to make your own fresh fucking coffee. I don’t have to do shit for you. Consider yourself lucky that I did the lottery ticket inventory. I’m just as tired as you are, and I don’t walk around acting like an asshole.”

“You know what? I like you Rebel. You’re a tough little broad.”

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 the faces of underage thieves on the pavement, mocking their "baby" tears. He would 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 sense of responsibility for the company’s property was in stark contrast with the other graveyard employee, Mark.

Mark worked four jobs, three music stores and Town & Country, and cared very little about any of them. He slept in his friend's closet and, despite DeeDee’s demands; refused to tame his hair, preferring to twist his corkscrew curls until they sprouted in all directions, defiant of gravity. He played tapes of Tom Waits or Throbbing Gristle at top volume, 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 preferred to use, and return to the shelf. This practice led to refunds on tubs of Carmex gouged by Mark's dirty fingers and Right Guard deodorant sticks contaminated with his armpit hair. He locked the front door at night and spent hours skating down the aisles, uninterrupted by customers. On the few occasions Mark worked my shift, we made it a habit to 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 constantly revolving cast of moody or insane trainees that never stayed past their first paycheck, leaving me with no impression other than a vague unpleasantness when they were gone. The only one I remember is Crackhead Joe.