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The Impact of Strangers
By AlanGrant5
The Impact of Strangers
Written by Devin Da Graca
11 PM. Chris Sumpter had been given the late shift for a second Saturday in a row. For some, Saturday nights were the most important nights of the week. They were the nights set aside for letting loose and forgetting about the other five days of the week that were typically left for Sunday to worry about. For Chris though, they were just like any other night. Once upon a time, Saturday’s had meant partying for him too, but then adulthood had crept into his routine, and turned a single moment’s rest into his weekend. So went the ABC’s of growing up Chris supposed.
There wasn’t much work for Chris between the hours of 11 PM and 3 AM, so he couldn’t really complain. It was slow-paced and with a surprisingly decent Ralph’s supermarket soundtrack, it was almost relaxing. Of course, the relaxation aspect of it all was thrown out the window whenever a customer laid down her coupon book at the register, but those came once in a blue moon during the hours he worked. Most of the customers Chris dealt with between 11 PM and 3 AM were the ones who walked in and out with items from isle three - alcohol, wines, and beers.
And at 11:02 PM, in they came... a group of already drunk, underage hooligans, stumbling into the bright lights of the store like disoriented hyenas. They played a game of leap-frog over each other’s backs as they made their way to isle three and it was at this moment that Chris developed the distinct craving for popcorn - to watch what was taking place without it would make it an incomplete experience.
Awaiting their presence at the register, Chris listened to their conversation taking place nearly forty feet away. They were speaking in Heineken, as Chris had come to call it, with their vocabulary clearly de-hanced by six too many brewskies.
“Dude! Look at this bottle of vodka, bro! It’s like a fuckin’ keg bro! Only $10.99! Where are we? Like the 99 Cent store or some shit? That’s a fuckin’ deal bro,” one in the drunken party had exclaimed.
Chris smiled and shook his head as he heard the intoxicated parade marching for the express lane. Looking up briefly, Chris counted two girls, and two guys, all looking as if they’d walked the plank by the point of Captain Morgan’s sword.
“How we doin’ this evening?” Chris asked, ringing up two oversized bottles of Seagram’s.
“Pshh, fuckin’ great bro, can’t you tell?” the leader of the pack answered with a grin overcoming his face. The other guy, wearing a t-shirt labeled ‘The Love Doctor’ was busy playing tongue hockey with his “patient,” while the other girl was looking sickly up at the white lights dangling from the ceiling.
“That’ll be $23.79,” Chris said with a smile.
Removing a credit card from his wallet, the man handed Chris the card, but quickly retracted his arm as if succumbing to an epiphany.
“You’re in my math class!” he accused, with a pointed finger and raised eyebrow.
Chris looked at the trashed individual as if trying to spot Waldo in a field of candy canes. He wasn’t completely sure if he recognized him or not, but what were the chances of two individuals taking a math class over summer?
“Uh... yeah, yeah I think so,” Chris said, bagging the bottles.
The man slapped the counter enthusiastically and finally decided to lay the card down. Perhaps he was expecting Alex Trebek to move him into the next, more prestigious, round of double-jeopardy.
“I knew it! I fucking knew it!”
“Yeah,” Chris laughed uncomfortably, “I thought I recognized you.”
“Man! What a trip! This is- what the hell are you doing working on a Saturday night bro?” he asked, as if the answer were unfathomable.
“Well, I... how else am I supposed to pay for my Saturday nights?” Chris replied, waving the bottle of Seagram’s before inserting it into a plastic bag.
“Aww, what? Naw, bro. You ain’t gotta pay for shit! You should come to my party, right now. It’s not even five blocks away from here,” he offered.
Chris, surprised by the gesture, as it came from someone he could barely piece together, rejected politely, “Oh, no. Can’t. Working late tonight.”
“Bullshit, my party– my party, bro, is gonna last until fuckin’– fuckin’ Monday morning. You workin’ ‘till Monday morning?”
“Odd as it may sound, I am,” Chris said, beaming an unfortunate grin.
The unrecognizable classmate, taken aback, squinted his eyes in a gullible, uncomprehensible way.
“Those are some sick hours bro! It’s can’t be worth it!” the drunkard proclaimed.
Chris shrugged his shoulders, “Have a good night, man. Take a shot for me.”
Taking his bag of liquor hesitantly, the leader of the pack reassembled his crew, and stumbled for the sliding doors confusedly.
“Yo, give this guy a break dog! Gotta treat your employees with some dignity ‘round here, know what I’m sayin’? Fuckin’ Nazis!” he protested on his way out.
“See you on Monday,” Chris called back.
“Yeah, we’ll see,” he laughed. “But, hey, if you change your mind, my house is right here on Maple. Just follow the music.”
Noticing an attentive security guard, the classmate’s paranoia forced him to alter his statement, “I say Maple? I meant... Enrique Street... in... Beverley Hills, right here in Beverley Hills. Can’t miss it... follow the music!”
Chris gave the guy a thumbs-up and a wink as he made his way out of the grocery store. Laughing to himself, Chris returned to the register.
Moments like those often tempted Chris into slipping back into the party scene, but ultimately he knew better. ‘It’s not a party if it happens every night,’ a song by the Postal Service had once warned him, and for the most part, truer words had never been sung. Drinking every weekend had often left Chris with the feeling of going nowhere fast. To be honest, he still wasn’t sure of where he was going himself even in the sober state of mind, but at least it was at a pace that was slow enough for him to eventually figure it out.
Carl, the elderly security guard, made his way towards the express lane like the sherif in a Clint Eastwood western.
“I wouldn’t follow that music for too much longer Chris,” Carl said through his prickly mustache.
“Wasn’t even planning on it Carl,” Chris said, closing the register.
“I know it Chris, I know it, ha ha. You’re a good kid.”
“Yeah, you’re just saying that because you think I’ll let you slide out of here without paying for another donut from the bakery again.”
“They’re only seventy-five cents,” Carl snickered.
“Mmhmm,” Chris mumbled, shooting Carl a cautionary look.
“Bah, sometimes you’re too good.”
Chris laughed, “Yeah, well, sometimes your back is turned when I’m up to no good at all.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he said, returning to his quarters. “You know, when I was your age-“
Suddenly, Chris’s attention wafted towards the sliding doors, which had opened to reveal what he had decided at that moment to be the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. She had brown hair tossed into a messy bun, striking blue eyes, and walked into the store as if carried by the wind. Chris wasn’t a believer of love at first sight, but this was as close as he came to changing his stance on the matter.
“- and we’d always... get into all sorts of trouble,” Carl finished, realizing the only ears listening to his story were his own.
Like a moth to a flame, Chris was drawn to her. He wasn’t sure exactly why he was so fascinated by the late-night customer. She was undoubtedly very pretty, but he’d seen his fair share of attractive women come in and out of the store before. There was something more to this one; a presence that magnetized his attention.
“I’ll be right back Carl,” Chris said, leaving the register.
“Yeah, I know it,” Carl said, knowing all too well why Chris had abandoned ship.
“Oh, and Carl?”
Carl turned around.
“My back is turned,” Chris said, nodding towards the bakery.
Carl followed the nod and smiled.
Walking slowly, but elegantly, the girl had made the produce section her destination rather than isle three– a plus in Chris’s book that only drew him in closer to the fascination. The plan was for him to ask if she needed any help finding anything, but with a single glance, the girl’s piercing blue eyes had sent Chris down into the canned goods isle.
“Holy...” was all Chris could manage once behind a wall of Chef Boyardee cans. He felt as if he’d disturbed a beautiful Victorian ghost from unintentionally haunting a place she hadn’t realized she’d become supernatural in.
Peeking through the slots of the shelves, Chris watched the girl return to her study of apples. He’d never felt such an instant overwhelming feeling towards a complete stranger before and it was that self-curiosity of ‘what makes her so much different from the rest?’ that kept Chris exploring her in secret.
As beautiful as she was, Chris noted, she radiated with melancholy. The way she picked up an apple, set it down; the way her eyes felt the surface of the fruit. She was thinking about more than just how the apple would taste; she was comparing it to the bittersweet taste that some aspect of her life had left her with. It was the distinct qualities of a detail that fascinated her, and after several minutes of careful selection, she picked up a dented red apple with an angelic grace. There were plenty more rounded apples in the cart she’d sifted through.
At 11:30, this girl had decided to spend her Saturday night at a grocery store. There wasn’t a party to follow her apple errand; she was taking her time. For her, this would be a lonely night of self-reflection. A girl as beautiful as she though was definitely not lonely by any natural means. If there were a reason for her being lonely on this night, it would be because she chose to be. Chris imagined that it complimented her pride to be looked at as such a weirdo for perusing the produce isle at 11:30 at night. She seemed comfortable in her own skin, but not in the world she inhabited. In that sense, she was one of a kind and to Chris, a discovery of a lifetime.
Chris couldn’t believe how much time he’d invested in contributing theories to the girl before him. She could be the complete opposite of what he suspected, but somehow felt safe with his assumptions.
Now if he could only relocate the girl he’d been theorizing about so much. Lost in his thoughts, Chris had managed to lose sight of her, and now traveled up the isle to see if he could catch a glimpse of her on the other side. Nothing.
Where the hell did she go? Chris thought. He wouldn’t have been surprised to discover she was a fabrication of his mind if it wasn’t for Carl having witnessed her presence too.
“Excuse me?” a feminine voice emerged.
Chris turned around and found her. He couldn’t answer, only raise his eyebrow in response.
“Where can I pay for this? There’s no one up front,” she said, holding her apple.
“Oh... I’m sorry. I’m supposed to– I’ll take care of that for you,” he stuttered, guiding her to the express lane.
She came here for an apple? is all Chris could think about as he walked before her.
“I’ll take you right here,” Chris said, resuming his place behind the register.
Smiling cordially, the girl handed Chris the apple. How badly he wanted to make her smile and watch the one that she had on blossom from its fakery.
“Will this be all? Just the apple?” he asked.
“Mmhmm,” she answered innocently enough.
“Okay then,” Chris replied, pressing every wrong button conceivable on the register. It was her damn eyes! He’d never seen eyes so blue before. They were crystal blue, like the Caribbean waters illuminated by sunlight, and within which he was sure lied sunken treasures.
“That’ll be... seventy cents,” Chris finally said with relief.
After a couple of seconds with no response, Chris looked up at the girl to find her eyes placed somewhere beyond him. She was listening to something... the store radio. A song called “The World Spins Madly On” by the Weepies was playing.
“Miss?” Chris said again.
Snapping out of it, the girl focused her attention back onto Chris.
“Oh, sorry, if I’d known you guys play the Weepies, I’d come here more often,” she said smiling.
Chris, delighted to hear her taste in music, stammered, “Oh? You-you like the Weepies too?”
“Oh, definitely, I love them,” she replied, sorting through a handful of change.
“Yeah... my friends make fun of me for liking them. They say that their music sounds like... um, sounds like the national anthem for suicide?”
The girl looked up at Chris and laughed. There it was, Chris thought, the blossoming of a genuine smile.
“Yeah, so that’s why they’re all working at Hard Rock Café, meanwhile, I’m down here ringing up customers to the Weepies,” Chris added on comfortably.
Her smile fading, “Yeah, I guess their music’s a little... a little slow. I don’t know about slow enough to have a person wanna kill themself though.”
“Yeah, no, totally not true for me, are you kidding? If that were the case I would have died... something around, I dunno, three-hundred and fifty-five thousand times by now?”
“Wow,” she said with the smile returning, “Three-hundred and fifty-five thousand times? That’s pretty specific.”
“Yeah, and pretty inaccurate too. I’m probably underestimating.”
With a final smile and brief hesitation, she proceeded, “How much was it again?”
“Oh, seventy cents.”
Quickly picking out a pair of quarters and dimes, the girl handed them to Chris.
“There ya go,” she said.
“Thank you,” Chris returned, counting the change. Before tossing the coins into the register drawer, Chris paused.
“You know what?” he said.
The girl answered with raised eyebrows.
“The apple’s on the house.”
“What? No, no-“
“Yes,” Chris said, handing her back the change.
Holding the coins in her hand, the girl looked at Chris suspiciously.
“Go ahead, take it. No use in making you pay for something that grows on trees,” he said nonchalantly.
“You’re serious?” she asked.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“You know, if I’d wanted to get an apple for free, I’d have picked one from my own backyard myself.”
“Yeah, maybe... chances are though, those apples wouldn’t share the same exact dent as that apple.”
“So?” she asked.
“Well... that’s what makes it different from the rest, right?”
She looked down at the apple, then at Chris. A moment of silence had engulfed them both into a comfortable understanding of each other.
“Yeah,” she said reflectively, “Thanks.”
Chris turned shy again and began scratching the back of his head. “Thank you.”
The girl smiled, “For what?”
Chris shrugged, “I don’t know... existing?”
Taking a moment to contemplate the strange answer, the girl picked up her apple, and said, “No... thank you for existing.”
Chris smiled, “Anytime.”
The girl nodded, then began walking towards the sliding doors; the melancholy fog that followed her into the store now lifted.
“Everything’s gonna be alright,” Chris shouted after her. He didn’t know why he’d said what he did, but he felt as if he had to, and it was too late taking it back anyhow.
The girl stopped in her tracks and turned her head to meet Chris’s.
“Yeah,” was all she could manage before exiting the store and as she walked back to her car, she’d come to the decision that tonight would not be her last night after all...
Chris, not knowing if he’d ever see her again, savored the sight of her exit, and photographed it with his mind’s eye, as to remember the face of the girl he’d be looking for, for the rest of his life.
“Kids,” Carl said to himself, shaking his head as he bit into a bright red apple.
Chris, re-startled back into reality by the loud crunch, looked at Carl with disciplined eyes.
“Seventy cents!”
THE END.
7/25/2006 9:55:12 AM
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