Mysterical-E

He Said, She Says

Fresh-Faced Kid
By Bill Bernico

It was one of those full-moon nights when the air was still and the world seemed at peace. The rain stopped shortly after eleven. The July night was hot and muggy and I wished I'd had the air conditioning in my car repaired when my mechanic suggested it several weeks earlier. Now my shirt was sticking to my back like an uncomfortable, clinging rag.

It was after midnight when I tooled his car down the main street leading out of town. Ahead I could see the lights of the mini mart shining onto the wet street. Stella straightened up in her seat and grabbed my knee.

“Pull in, would you, Jack?” she said. “I feel lucky tonight. I wanna get a lottery ticket.” She unbuckled her seat belt even as the car pulled into the parking spot in front of the mart. She followed me in and took her place at the counter.

I sidled over to where a display of cakes and donuts had caught my attention. I mentally weighed the differences in price and net weight before selecting a packaged cinnamon roll. At the dairy case, I grabbed a small chocolate milk and brought my booty to the counter where Stella was picking out four instant scratch lottery tickets and one for the multi-million dollar drawing. I set my late night snack on the counter.

“What do you want?” I said, nodding at the cinnamon roll and chocolate milk.

Stella looked up at me. She'd stopped scratching her ticket long enough to say, “nothing. I'll just have a bite of yours.” She lowered her head again and intently resumed the ticket scratching.

The fresh-faced kid behind the counter couldn't have been more than seventeen. His eyes and lips and rosy cheeks still had noticeable traces of baby fat. He may have been seventeen but his face could have passed for that of a kid ten years younger. On the counter behind him lay an algebra book open to the halfway point. Beside it were some papers with figures scribbled on it.

“Will that be all, sir?” He said, pointing to my snacks and Stella's tickets.

“Yup. That's everything,” I said, already beginning to open the cinnamon roll package.

“That's seven thirty-nine,” the kid said, punching buttons on the register.

I gave the kid a ten and continued opening my snack. The kid counted out his change and handed it back to me.

“Thank you, sir. Have a good night.” His voice was almost squeaky and his cheeks blushed a bright red. A smile crept onto his face as he nodded at the couple.

I noticed another woman standing behind me and nudged Stella's elbow. Stella looked up and noticed two other patrons starting to fall in line behind her. She scooped up her tickets and walked over to the condiment counter near the hot dog machine. She continued scratching tickets as I took the first bite out of my roll and followed it with a swallow of chocolate milk.

We could hear the transactions taking place at the checkout counter as each customer presented their purchases and waited for their change. In each instance the young clerk extended the same courtesy and almost shy demeanor that he had with us.

Stella finished her ticket scratching and produced a two-dollar winner. “Hey, I won,” she said, holding up the ticket.

I examined the ticket. “Not bad, kiddo. It only cost you four bucks to win two. A few more like that and we can retire.”

Stella didn't see the humor in my sarcasm. She just shook her head and proceeded to the counter. Smiling broadly, she handed her winning ticket to the clerk.

“Would you like two more tickets or the two dollars?” the clerk asked shyly.

Stella looked back at me and saw that look I always gave her when I disapproved.

“I'll take the two dollars,” she said.

The clerk handed two one-dollar bills over the counter to Stella, who promptly deposited them in her purse.

“Thank you very much, ma'am,” the fresh-faced clerk said, smiling. “Come again.”

I joined her at the door and we walked back to our car. Through the window we could see the kid turning his attention to the book open on the counter behind him.

“He seems like a nice kid, doesn't he?” Stella said, turning toward me.

“Huh?”

“The clerk back there,” Stella said. “You don't see many kids like him any more. Polite, good looking, well mannered, no tattoos or scraggly hair. You know, wholesome.”

“Yeah,” I said, “The kind you hope your daughter brings home. I noticed he was doing his math back behind the counter.”

“Algebra,” Stella said.

“Math, algebra, calculus, arithmetic, it's all the same to me. I never cared for it. I was better at sports than lessons.”

I pulled out of the driveway and headed south on Main. Stella's eyes drifted off into the night sky. “Seems like a dangerous job for such a young kid, doesn't it?”

“Yeah,” I said in that sarcastic voice I used to patronize Stella when I thought she'd said something dumb. “He could get a fatal paper cut from the cash register paper. Or he might drop a gallon of milk on his toe. Oooh, or worse yet, he might overdose on sugar candy.” I snickered as I drove on.

“No, I mean being in the place all by himself so late at night,” Stella said. “Someone could come in and hold the place up and shoot him. It's happened before.”

The sarcasm left my voice as I thought about the possibilities that awaited a lone clerk in a mini mart late at night. “You know, I was thinking the same thing when we pulled out of there. You remember Don? He managed that gas station in Milwaukee? One of his part-time clerks was shot dead at three in the morning by some creep looking for an easy score. I think I remember reading where the guy got away with sixteen dollars. You'd think a kid's life would be worth more than sixteen dollars.”

“That's all he got?” Stella said. “Why'd he have to shoot the kid? Couldn't he just have taken the money and left? What an animal. I think I'd be sick if I ever heard something like that happened to this kid.”

“I suppose,” I said. “Ever think of something like that happening to Joey when we're gone?”

“Oh, geez,” Stella said, “I don't even wanna think about it.”

“Well,” I said, “we can't be at the bar all the time. There will be more times when Joey will have to close the place up for us.”

Stella got that worried look she sometimes got when she thought too much. “You think it's time we maybe started thinking about selling the bar and retiring? I mean, we really don't need the money any more and the times are a lot more dangerous now than when we bought it.”

I pulled the car into the parking lot of the bar Stella and I owned on the outskirts of town. “Maybe we should think about it,” I said. “Maybe after the first of the year. We can get a better tax break if we wait.”

Joey was behind the bar, wiping a beer mug when Stella and I entered. There was just one customer sitting at the end of the bar nursing a beer. It was slow for a Wednesday night. “Why don't you go on home, Joey?” I said, walking around behind the bar. “We can handle it for the next half hour.”

“You don't have to tell me twice,” Joey said, removing his white bar apron. “See you Friday night, chief.” Joey passed by Stella on his way to the door. “See you, too, Mrs. Rhodes.”

A surge of maternal instinct washed over Stella and she threw her arms around Joey and hugged him tight. A few seconds later she released him and stood back to get a better look at the kid they'd hired several months earlier. Stella pulled Joey back toward him again and kissed his cheek. “Good night, Joey.”

She released him and he quickly stepped back, looking toward me for an explanation. I shrugged and tilted my head. Joey sheepishly backed out of the door without further remarks.

The customer at the end of the bar finished his beer and stood up, grabbing his hat. He made it to the front door without falling over but just barely.

“Good night,” Stella said, as the customer left. “Come again.”

The customer didn’t answer. He let the door close behind him and walked out to his car. I heard the engine kick over and the sound of the car as it sped away in the night.

“Looks like it’s you and me, kid,” I said, cleaning up after the last patron. “What do you say we clean up and close a little early tonight?”

Stella stood staring at the illuminated beer sign, lost in thought. I walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, nuzzling her neck. “You still worried about Joey?”

“And that kid at the mini mart,” Stella said, “and every other kid who's left alone at that hour of the night.”

“Six more months and we can sell this place,” I said. “I've about had enough of dealing with the public myself.”

I walked over to the picture window and pulled the string that turned off the neon beer sign. I was about to lock the front door when it opened and two men entered wearing ski masks and flashing handguns in front of them.

One of the men jabbed the barrel of his revolver in my stomach and pushed me back into the room while the other pulled the shade down over the front door and locked it behind him. Stella clapped her hand over her mouth, trying to muffle a scream. She backed up away from the men, feeling behind her as she retreated.

The first man kept pushing until my back was up against the bar. “Okay, pop, open the till,” he said in a voice that was almost squeaky. “Now!”

I hurried behind the bar and punched two buttons on the cash register. The cash drawer slid open with a ring. I scooped out the currency and laid it on the bar. Two of the twenties fell over onto the floor. In the instant it took the man to instinctively bend over to retrieve them, I had the .38 that I kept under the bar, in my hand.

The man at the door yelled to his partner, “he’s got a gun, Jason.” He fired his pistol at me, missing me by several feet. I returned fire, hitting the second man in the abdomen. He fell back against the front door, groaning and holding his mid-section. Blood oozed out between his fingers.

In the split second following the first shot, Jason rose from the barroom floor clutching the two twenties that had fallen. His revolver fired up and wide, tearing a hole in the ceiling above my head. I squeezed off another round, hitting Jason in the side of his neck. Jason’s gun dropped to the floor with a thud. Jason grasped his neck with his right hand, his left hand still holding tight to the forty dollars. In a matter of seconds he fell backwards, flat on has back. His head hit the barroom floor with a cracking sound. With a final gasp, Jason’s hand fell away from his neck and out at his side. Blood spurted out of the wound and onto the floor. A crimson pool formed around the man’s head.

The second man was still groaning and holding his left hand over his wound. His right held tight to the pistol. I walked toward him and the man threw his gun away from him and held his hand up in front of his face. “No,” he screamed. “No!” His face got tight and he winced in pain. Suddenly his eyes widened and rolled back into his head and he slumped over sideways across the front door.

Stella rushed over to where I stood and threw her arms around my neck, sobbing uncontrollably. I laid my .38 on the bar and hugged her.

“Are you all right?” I asked, looking her over.

Stella buried her head into my shoulder and continued sobbing. She lifted her head to face me. “Oh, Jack, that was a foolish thing to do. You could have been killed.” She hugged him again, grateful that he wasn’t.

I pried Stella’s arms from around his neck and sat her down on a stool. I came around from behind the bar and knelt down next to the man sprawled across the door. I pressed two fingers into the man’s neck looking for a pulse. He didn’t find one. I lifted the ski mask from the man’s face and stepped back for a better look.

“For Christ’s sake,” I said, shaking, “he’s just a kid. Just a god damned stupid kid.”

“Oh, my god,” Stella said.

I turned around to find Stella standing over Jason’s body. She’d pulled his ski mask off and stood holding it. I looked down at the body on the floor. He, too, was just a kid. Just a fresh-faced, foolish kid who’d never get to take that final algebra test.

Author Bio

Bill Bernico is the author of more than 150 short stories and one novel. For four years he wrote a weekly humor column for his hometown newspaper, The Sheboygan Press. Bill's advice columns for computer enthusiasts have appeared in various magazines around the world. These days Bill writes an online advice column for musicians. Bill is a songwriter and has won several songwriting contests. He is also a working musician and has been playing live shows since 1966.