Memory

I like to think I’m like most people. I like the American things—apple pie, beef hot dogs, and really bad horror films. I like pretending I’m a bigshot when most days I’m grateful to sail just below the radar. And like most people, I hate being called in to work on my day off. It was Sunday night, and it had been a long day. 

Any day that includes a baby shower stuffed with woman shoving cocktail weenies in their flapping mouths, battling over who knows the most nursery rhymes, is going to be a long day. Coming home and trying to bury my head into my pillow, my phone rang. It was my sister. At work. Trying to relay a message from my boss that begged me to come in to work. It was after five and I was exhausted and I told her no and hung up the phone.

Moments later I got another phone call from work. I ignored it, trying to suffocate my cheeks with the pillow now. Not long after that, my sister texted me. I have no idea why I didn’t turn my phone off, or silence it. I never do. I imagine I like having my sleep patterns interrupted so that everyone can listen to me as I bitch about it for hours. Like most people, I like feeling like my opinion matters.

They asked if you could come in at nine tonight.

I sighed. Or maybe I rolled my eyes, smashed my head into the pillow repeatedly, than stomped around the house for no apparent reason. Obviously “no” would not be an acceptable answer tonight. I texted her back and told her to tell them I’d be there. I really hate being called in to work.

Coming in at nine o’ clock, felt like coming in at any other time.  Except by now the store was mostly empty and the employees eye you kind of oddly because the majority of the perishable department members are clocking out while you’re clocking in. A couple, “kinda late aren’t you?” comments that you kind of ignore and then you go to your position, whip out your phone, and just stand there.

I was running self-checkout tonight, we call it U-Scan, and I wrapped the handheld that controls the machines around my wrist by the attachment. I whipped out my phone, and with the store almost empty, typical of a Sunday evening when everyone's kids were in bed dreading another Monday morning, I texted and surfed, and played Words with Friends. When I wasn’t doing that, I was wandering the Front End, bothering my manager and the other employees that darted in and out of the front or that worked the registers. It was boring work but I should admit it was one of a few times I earned a very easy, very lazy paycheck.

I don’t remember who approached me with it first. Maybe the store manager for the night, a tall brown-skinned man who often wore his dress shirts crisply pressed and blue. Why he seemed to prefer powder blue hues over all other shirt colors was a mystery to me, but under his heavy brown jacket he was usually wearing blue. Perhaps it was my supervisor, working accounting that night—redhead, bony, and giving off more smoke than a barbecue pit. Either way, the both approached me, asking if I had heard about the creepy man.

It is important to understand that at Kroger, we have more than one creepy man. There is one gentleman, who we’ve decided must be homeless. He comes in, long hair swaying, smelling foul and eyeing everyone in a way that makes our customers pause. Of course, they end up standing there too long and catching a whiff of him, and that’s when the complaints start. The employees on the other hand have learned to hold their breath and run. Fast.

But this night he was not the creepy man they were talking about. They explained to me that this man was a common customer, but I had never seen him before. They described him to me as a Charles Manson lookalike, which surprisingly enough did not narrow down the field for me. But he had come in earlier today and grabbed a Gatorade and was walking the store, sipping it. One of the customers pointed him out to our manager and told him that they and another employee did not see this man purchase his drink. My manager spotted him and as he started to approach this man, the man turned in the other direction and hightailed it out of the store, Gatorade in tow.

But the man came back later to purchase two loaves of bread.  The Manson twin spotted my manager while he was in the store and approached him, bread loaves swinging in his hand. He stopped in front of him, and our manager, Mr. Nash is his name, gave the man a familiar but friendly greeting. He didn’t answer, nodded it off and muttered.

“I’m sorry.” He told him, and before Mr. Nash could respond, the man rushed off for the registers to pay for his bread.

“Probably felt guilty for stealing that Gatorade,” Mr. Nash told me later, “but I couldn’t prove that you know. 

So when I caught up to him later I told him that I didn’t know what he was apologizing for, but he was okay by me.”

I remember staring at my manager, my right eyebrow slightly raised because that’s the only one I can lift. I didn’t say anything, just stared at him as he continued the story.

Apparently the man went home, and then made a phone call up to the store, asking to speak to Mr. Nash. He asked when my manager would be leaving, and Mr. Nash explained to him that the evening manager usually switched for the overnight manager around 11 at night. The man then asked Mr. Nash if he would wait for him and Mr. Nash said he would. He hung up abruptly.

So here it was, a little after ten when the man showed up. I knew it was him when all the front-end employees fell silent, crowding in spaciously conspicuous areas around the front door, watching him. My redheaded supervisor dodged behind customer service, hovering over the phone and watching him without faltering. 

While everyone else ducked and meandered to avoid his gaze, she watched him without hesitation. This was typical of her, and it was probably why this man ended up gravitating to her later.

He was dressed in camo, which he had not been wearing earlier as I was later informed. He wore a tight green bandana on his head, wisps of black hair framing his ears. He was dirty, hands shoved into his pockets and he walked with his head low and bobbing, swaying with each exaggerated step forward. He locked eyes with Ms. Brenda, a sweet older lady and the only cashier left at that time of night. Then he moved over to the cupcakes and stood there, waiting. I found out later it was the last place he had spotted Mr. Nash.

Everyone was in a tizzy. We were all women, and we were all afraid of what this odd man might do. Afraid of his changed wardrobe. His crazed appearance. Afraid of his dirt. I watched the man, my heart pounding, waiting. Not because he was scary, but because of what heightened sense of alertness everyone in that store felt. We all watched him disappear into the store and the front end buzzed with fear. And then just as quickly as he appeared he dodged out of the store, almost as if in a run, and did not come back that night. Mr. Nash appeared soon after, shaking his head and chuckling.

“All of you are blessed.” He said, sweeping his hand out around us, “he came to me and told me, bless you  and all those around you. Then he left. So, you’re all blessed.”

And we stared at him, some of us glancing where the man disappeared out the store. Some of us, like Mr. Nash, shaking our heads and rolling our eyes. And I, like most people, not sure if I should have come into work after all that night.