He’d been in town for a while, saving his money and finding ways to pass the time while he waited. It was strange how he felt now that he’d finally gotten to rest. Restless, was the word, as he saw the same place and the same people every day. He was grateful for the security, but he was restless sitting still so long after ages on the move. He found comfort in customizing his new life to his liking. He painted his own walls with the cans of spray he confiscated from the belongings abandoned by frightened teenagers as the nights passed. He was never much of an artist, but he knew what a lot of things looked like. He knew what the stars looked like in the desert and what the sun setting over the city looked like from ten stories up. He had lots of memories to inspire him and lots of colors to choose from.
He found discarded things that brought him joy. Bent silverware made bright chimes for the wind and old sheets could be cut or dyed to make nice tapestries. He fashioned a fourth wall for himself, privacy being a luxury he’d only known sparsely. He picked up hobbies, carving little creatures from branches in the woods to keep himself company. They weren’t very good, and it was hard with a missing finger, but he’d made them and that brought him joy. He learned to pass the time by smacking sticks against the floorboards to mimic his favorite drum solos. Sometimes he’d even make up his own. It wasn’t a melody, but the beat was nice and he’d made it himself. That brought him joy.
She was there, in his joy, his thoughts, and his dreams as he waited. Waiting was feeling better and better with each day. He couldn’t wait to share what he’d learned with her, to show her what he’d made.
It was a warm summer night when he walked the darkened streets of the town of Elsewhere, making his way to the 7/11 for a pack of cigarettes. He’d just rounded the corner when he stopped in his tracks. He stepped back behind the Firehall to peer around the corner where he was out of sight, aware that he was well hidden in the shade so long as he didn’t move much. He watched the rambunctious group of four teenagers as they loitered about the entrance. He weighed his options as he watched one leave just as another decided to walk back in. To get another slushy or another bag of chips or something. He didn’t want to encounter them, not because he was frightened, but because he’d been actively frightening them away from his woods. He’d always tried to stay hidden when he watched his traps and scares, but he couldn’t guarantee he’d never been spotted. He didn’t want to be recognized.
He made up his mind and he turned around, taking the road up again toward the Wingdings a couple blocks farther. The cigarettes were more expensive there and the employees didn’t care for him, but it wasn’t the end of the world. He appreciated the longer detour for what it was, more time spent out in the silence. He looked around at the streetlights as they glowed off the surfaces of parked cars and puddles as he walked at a leisurely pace through the sleepy streets. He would never complain about having to walk at night, it always felt so pleasantly different.
He approached the accordion doors slowly as they automatically opened. He didn’t shy from the bright fluorescents when they contrasted with his night vision, there was something tolerable about the white light when compared to the unyielding yellow blaze of the morning sun. It was late, and there were two other customers in the halls he saw as he meandered to the counter. He wasn’t surprised to see the night shift clerk on his regular schedule, but he was surprised to see he appeared to be the only one on staff.
“How’s it goin?” He asked tiredly, not addressing Albert with the corporate-mandated ‘Welcome to Wingdings’ like they did in the morning. Albert preferred this.
“Uh…” He looked behind the cashier at the meager selection of cigarettes, knowing better than to actually answer the cashier's rhetorical greeting. “I’ll take an L&M full flavor, kings.” He decided, tossing a lighter and a box of spearmint gum on the counter from the shelf on a whim. The store clerk grabbed the L&M’s without even looking behind him, scanning Albert’s ID and ringing him up.
“Nineteen sixty-three.” He said.
“Year of our lord”
“Good year.”
Albert said a very similar dumb year-joke at the same time as the cashier. They both paused for an awkward moment.
“Our lord? Like God?” Albert asked more to break the silence than anything. The cashier shook his head very slightly and smiled to himself.
“Bob Dylan,” He corrected. Albert knew the name but not the year it was referencing. “I guess you should get them before they’re gone.” the cashier said with a grin. Albert gave him a puzzled look at the comment.
“Gone?”
“Yeah,” the clerk tapped a small sign on the table while he counted out Albert’s change. “We’re phasing out tobacco products, people are gonna be mad.” He revealed. “I don’t wanna have to turn you away one of these days, here.” He handed the coins back to Albert without telling him the amount.
“Oh, thanks…” He pocketed the change, upset at the idea of only having 7/11 as an option in the future. He’d turned to leave and almost committed when he realized what the cashier had done. The cashier tried to make conversation with him. The homeless guy who made him count cans and paid for red bull with coins. He hadn’t refused to make eye contact with him or rushed to get him to leave like the people at 7/11. In fact, the kid had never done that as far as Albert could remember. The guy treated him with the same dead-eyed disinterest that he’d treat any customer. Albert knew being treated like a human being shouldn’t have felt like such a favor, but in that instant after how everyone had seen him, it really did feel like a kindness. “Thank you.” He repeated his thanks more sincerely, unsure if the store clerk understood the sentiment, but satisfied that he’d at least tried to express it.
He left the line, the woman from the aisle taking his place impatiently as he left the store. He packed the cigarettes absently as he strolled back out the accordion doors. He wouldn’t have noticed the man walking in from the dark outside as Albert walked out into it as he stared at the stars, thinking of being treated like a person and looking forward to an actual pack of cigarettes he hadn’t had to bum off someone. He wouldn’t have noticed the man, but he noticed the gun.
Albert liked to think he avoided the worst of his strange circles from his less legal years, but he’d encountered his share of guns.
He stopped in his tracks, just before the sidewalk, as he watched the stranger disappear into the pharmacy without a backward glance. Unaware he’d been seen. Albert looked at the door for a very long time, wondering what he should do. He had no proof of any suspicion, open carry was legal in PA, but at this time of night, with only one employee…
Albert was being paranoid, he decided. The pharmacy's business wasn’t his business, and he had no reason to believe the man meant harm. Albert had known many respectable people who openly carried firearms just because they could. He shook the suspicious thoughts from his mind as he crossed the street, no cars to warrant him waiting. He resolved not to think about the man as he walked home. He didn’t want to work himself up and keep himself up over nothing. It was such a nice night and he’d been so fortunate and it would be such a shame to ruin it over nothing.
It started imperceptibly, he was on Albert’s mind.
He was always on staff, it seemed, every time Albert went into that pharmacy whether it was night or day, weekend or not. That same kid seemed to work nonstop for that Wingdings. Albert had taken notice of a lot of the strange characters of Elsewhere, reasoning that just because none would talk to him due to his situation didn’t mean that he couldn’t get to know them. He missed getting to know people the more he’d been waiting. He hadn’t intentionally kept track of the kid, but it was hard not to notice he’d only ever been rung out by one cashier in the months he’d lived there. Albert thought about the kid and how he looked like he couldn’t be older than 18, running a pharmacy by himself. He thought about the man with the gun who most likely had no ill intentions. He thought, practically against his will as he tried everything not to think about it, he thought of what if the man intended to rob the store. What if he’d just left the kid to handle that situation by himself?
What could Albert have even done? It was no business of his and store cashiers got training for situations like that, or so he’d been told. He wondered if the kid was scared. With all the time and shifts he worked, he wondered if the kid had had to deal with a robbery before, even if that man hadn’t meant any harm.
Suddenly he was justifying himself, walking into the refreshing embrace of the trees as he arrived back to his woods. He was explaining to the store clerk, whom he’d only spoken to once, why he’d done nothing. He was justifying bitterly why he’d thought there was no reason to worry and why he had just left. He was under no moral obligation to help, and even if he was, there was no reason to believe he had to.
What was happening?
When had Albert imagined himself into a reality where it somehow was a robbery, which it definitely wasn’t, and this random guy was judging him for not getting involved in said crime?
Albert pulled himself onto the platform of his lean-to, moving the cloth wall aside and resting himself in the darkness beyond. He had no timepiece, and he wouldn’t know how to read it if he did, but he knew the night had progressed to the AM. He should’ve been exhausted, or at least tired. Even routine indicated it since this was beyond the time he’d usually pass out from exertion for the day.
Still, he lay awake, staring at the dark wooden and painted expanse of his ceiling. He thought about the clerk, reworking his explanations and concerns over and over in his head until he forgot what he wanted to say, forgot what he’d already said. He stared at the ceiling and counted the time in increments the kid could’ve been threatened, or frightened, or just working normally. He counted them until he ran out of time and forgot what it was. He asked Locust for her opinion and she told him to act, and stay still, and make a decision, and just go to sleep. He stayed there trying valiantly and failing to let sleep come for him until he was certain the sun was rising outside. It was dimly lighting the colorful cloth wall he’d fashioned for himself because it brought him joy. He felt himself jump at the squeaking and scurrying that ran suddenly under his lean-to and into the night. He felt something swelling inside him, be it fear or anxiety, or curiosity. He felt it fill his lungs and ribs and arms with energy and he sat up. Lying was too horizontal and he couldn’t stand to do it any longer. He couldn’t seem to stop thinking, talking, mumbling out loud to himself to the store clerk he had spoken to only once.
The one that spoke to him like a person.
Suddenly he was up, trudging out of his lean-to into the earliest of the morning. He felt the squish of the grass as he made his way up the trail and back toward the town. It was a different kind of different, being out so early in the morning. Everything was copper and slightly damp where it was coated in dew. It was cloudy and much colder than it had been the night before. Albert felt the silence of being able to see how empty the world was around him as he meandered up the road into town, towards the pharmacy he knew closed hours ago and didn’t open for hours more. He took in the carless streets and empty, closed stores as he passed. It was a curious liminal space that Albert, a creature of nighttime, didn’t often experience.
He walked the empty roads, not bothering to obey the streetlights as he crossed. He ran his fingers across the bricks of the firehall as he passed, enjoying on some level the rough surface that buffed the skin of his fingertips and made them feel tingly. He approached the accordion doors of the pharmacy slowly, peering inside when they didn’t open in his presence.
Closed, but he’d expected that.
He paced around outside, lighting his second cigarette from the pack and wondering if he should just go home. He’d come back to check and there was nothing here, he’d done all he could. Surely his body would just let him call it a night.
That was too simple.
He waited and wondered and agonized over what to do as the sun rose slowly behind the clouds, lighting them with a matte white sky that brightened nothing. Albert was tired enough to sit under the overhang for a spell as the rain started. It was sprinkles first that Albert hoped would clear up after a few minutes. They did not. He watched as the small dots of wet asphalt became larger, connecting and pooling as the rain fell harder and harder. The entire parking lot was soaked by the time he’d accepted that he’d have to get wet if he wanted to go back. He felt his nervous energy leave him as he rested against the side of the building under the overhang. The smell of the sweet rain on the warm asphalt right in front of him was a pleasant one, and the sound was just the perfect white noise to drown out his worse thoughts and spirals. He found his eyes drifting shut for longer and longer before he remembered to open them again.
He glanced around the parking lot for any sign of a car. He didn’t know what time it was and he didn’t know what time the pharmacy opened, but he felt like it was still a ways off. Albert supposed, as he saw no police, that this was a safe-ish place for a short nap. Enough to let him rest his heavy eyes, enough to wait out the rain. He let his eyes drift shut one last time, not remembering to open them again.
Comments (0)
See all