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There is always that short window of time at the beginning
of a work shift in a convenience store into which some jerk just has to
stick his head. It is that moment when the thought comes over the clerk
to just kill the customer. Just kill them dead right then and be done with
it. Usually, the window closes when the clerk just decides to not kill anyone
that day. Often it takes little more than that, just a conscious decision
not to waste the idiot who has so quickly pushed your button. One night though, there was a certain clerk, in a certain store who gave in to that urge. He gave in to that momentary urge to kill the customer who was hassling him. The matter was a small one. But isn't that always the case in convenience stores- that the matters are small. I mean, it isn't brain surgery or space travel involved there. People are just buying cigarettes or soda pop or getting gas or some such other of the small details of life. But on this night we had a collision of unrelated factors. The clerk was bothered by several matters in his personal life. He had not slept well that day. He cut himself shaving. He stubbed his toe on the way to work. He had just gone through are particularly confusing shift change because he was relieving a particular stupid co-worker. He had to do several things to get the counter area organized and also count the hundreds of packs of cigarettes in the overhead rack because inventory was being kept tightly as the owner suspected someone was stealing packs of cigarettes. The customer slammed through the door and reached into his pockets and spilled out a mass of coins on the counters. Pennies, nickel, dimes and quarters, some American and some not. He looked at the clerk with a self-satisfied grin like a toddler who had just messed his diaper and said, "I hate to do this to you." The coins were still rolling around on the counter. In the stillness of the moment, the clerk heard the delicate plinks as some of the pennies fell onto the floor. He stared at the change on the counter and then looked into the face of the customer plastered with an idiotic grin. From deep inside his mind, the clerk heard a roar like a waterfall rise up and take hold of his thoughts. He felt like Michael Corleone at the restaurant with Sollozzo and the Police Captain in "The Godfather." Without a conscious thought he picked up the ax handle that was kept behind the counter and with a quick snap of the wrists like Roy Hobbs in "The Natural," he took a short left-handed swing and connected with the skull of the customer, who went down like he was shot. With a pragmatism born of crossing a line that had been stepped up to many times, the clerk quickly dragged the body of the customer into the walk-in cooler in the back of the store and went back to the counter and started counting and rolling the change that was laying there. As he pushed the nickels into the roller, the bell on the front door jangled and the sound of the bell sent an electric shock through him. In walked one of those welfare women. The kind with tatoos and tight shorts that haunt convenience stores late at night looking to exchange their food stamps for change in order to get enough to buy a quart of beer or a pack of cigarettes. She asked, "Do you take food stamps?" The clerk heard the ever-so-slight running of that waterfall as he nodded. She walked over to the cooler and pulled out a 32-oz Gatorade. Grape. As she turned, she bumped into a display of beer and dropped the plastic bottle. The clerk watched it fall in slow motion as it spun end over end and then hit the floor right on the plastic cap. The bottle exploded like a bomb and 32 ounces of purple Gatorade were sprayed over the floor and potato chip rack. "Oops, I guess I made a mess," the woman said, giggling. The clerk picked up the trusty ax handle and in three quick steps covered the ground between him and the woman. Whack! He dragged her into the cooler and threw her on top of the change bringer. As he stepped out of the cooler, the bell rang again. It was a young couple out on a mating dance. They were cooing and giggling as they made their way to the softserve ice cream machine. The gallant young man began to fill a cone and, of course, it being a 6-oz size cone, he had to put in close to 13 ounces. As he put the other cone under the dispenser the first cone teetered dangerously in his hand. The girl reached for it and the ice cream fell onto the floor. They giggled. Whack! Whack! Two more were added to the pile of cordwood in the cooler. And so it continued on into the wee hours of the morning. One by one the customers came in. One by one they committed the common transgressions of stupidity. And one by one they were dispatched by the grim reaper of convenience store clerks. Whack! One by one they were dragged into the cooler. There was the old woman who sprayed gas out on to the parking lot. Whack! The old man who complained about the oil prices. Whack! The kid with baggy pants trying to shoplift gum. Whack! The woman who searched through her purse three times, for three separate purchases. Whack! The man who grabbed a handful of sugar and cream from the coffee bar and started waltzing out the door. Whack! The woman who asked for directions and then argued about whether they were correct or not. Whack! The teenagers who overfilled their drink cups and then dripped soda on the soda fountain, the floor and the counter. Whack! Whack! Whack! The cooler was getting full. Somewhere in town people were getting worried as loved ones were failing to arrive home and the police lines were tied up with calls about missing persons. Police cruisers were dispatched to all areas of town to search for some clue as to the whereabouts of so many people. Detectives visited the homes of the missing people and a pattern began to emerge and all clues pointed to that certain convenience store. That certain clerk was calmly reading the paper that had been delivered by the paper delivery truck. The store was surrounded by the SWAT team. Brave police officers burst through the door and took the clerk down. A detective went back and looked in the cooler and gagged as he witnessed a sight that was perhaps only seen in a concentration camp. The bodies of the victims were haphazardly stacked among the beer and soda. Three officers led the handcuffed clerk out to the waiting paddy wagon. A perky blonde from the local Action News team ran up with her microphone. The clerk was staked out like a deer in head lights as the cameraman focused on his face. The blonde was shouting, "It's been said that you have cold-bloodedly killed 37 people tonight! Why did you do it? What do you have to say for yourself?" The clerk looked at her and then into the camera. A boyish grin came across his face as he spoke, "Welcome to the All Night Mini Mart. May I help you?" |