Matt Cowper - The Clerk

Yes, it had been the worst argument he’d ever had with his father, but Thomas did not consider himself the villain. His father, after all, had said things that were just as harmful, and he’d driven like a maniac on Highway 101, nearly causing several wrecks. He’d also refused to say anything to Thomas as he prepared to depart, and even ignored his son’s hand when Thomas meekly held it out. Thomas’s mother noticed all this, but she was still reeling from Emily and Dan’s unionizing disunion, and she didn’t say or do anything that would help heal the rift.

But after beating himself up for a few days, Thomas got tired of the self-inflicted blows. His main thought became: So what? People argued all the time, especially families. True, his father would continue to act like his tender soul had been lacerated, but that was his problem. He would get over it, or he wouldn’t. Thomas wasn’t going to help or hinder him either way. He had been weary of all the drama for days, but now it seemed that the drama had finally ceased, and he wasn’t about to create more. His parents were back home, Dan and Emily had solved their problems, Kara hadn’t sent another hitman after him, and things at Oxendine’s Grocery had apparently taken care of themselves. Why shouldn’t he smile?

“Before you get going,” Vernon said now, “I’d like to talk to you in private. Would you mind stepping into the smelly old garbage dump I call my office?”

“Sure, Vernon,” Thomas said, curious as to why his boss sounded so grave.

Vernon entered the office first and sat down in his duct-tape-patched office chair, which dutifully squeaked. Thomas sat down in a bland cushioned seat that looked like it had been snagged from a school auditorium — which it in fact had. The rust-brown filing cabinet still sat in the corner, though its top drawer was missing. Thomas wondered about it, then he remembered that last week Vernon had thrown a fit because it wouldn’t close properly, and tossed it into the dumpster. The files that had been in the drawer were now stacked on the floor, likely to remain there until Rapture.

The desk was, as usual, covered with invoices and all manner of paperwork. Thomas saw Yolanda was still supplying her husband with pink and purple paperclips, but she’d also added ones that had zebra stripes and twinkling glitter.

And yes, the office did smell, but its odor wasn’t quite that of a garbage dump. It smelt of unwashed bodies, coffee, wet paper, and toasted bread. Some middle-class office worker, used to perfectly sanitized rooms and insipidly invigorating air fresheners, would have fidgeted and counted the seconds until they could escape. Thomas and Vernon, however, sat quite at ease.

“So what’s up, boss?” Thomas asked.

“Just wanted to talk about a few things,” Vernon replied, looking down and fiddling with his coffee cup. Thomas leaned forward a little. It wasn’t like Vernon to not make eye contact. “You’re not in any trouble, though. Just want to be clear on that.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“It’s just… I want to get your thoughts on this mass exodus.”

“Mass exodus?”

“Well, first Orianna left. Then Carly. You know about those two.”

Thomas nodded. Of course he remembered his dockside walk with Orianna — though, like his argument with his father, its intensity was already fading with time.

Carly had given her notice two days ago. According to Vernon, she couldn’t stand working at the same place as “that dirty little cockroach who took advantage of me” — meaning, of course, Noah. Although Noah had been properly chastised, and avoided Carly like the plague, others in the store still made smart-ass comments about the Beach Romp. Eddie had asked her if Noah’s “wang” was as big as an ark, “because his name’s Noah, and the Noah in the Bible had an ark. Get it?” One of the teenage night-shift workers had said to Carly that “Noah said to tell you he thinks he’s got gonorrhea, so you might want to check yourself out, since he for sure hasn’t hooked up with anyone else.”

Vernon had privately (and sometimes publicly, when he couldn’t help himself) chuckled at these comments, but in the interest of fairness he’d tried to curtail them. His efforts, however, had not been enough, at least in Carly’s mind. “You’re just as bad as them,” she’d rebuked as she gave her notice. Vernon had protested, but, knowing this was a truly lost cause, and fearing a sexual harassment charge (which was very possible; look what she’d done to Noah), he had not given her The Talk.

This should have been good news to Noah. The righteous archangel who had filled him with guilt and dread was leaving. He would now be free to act as he pleased, without wondering if Carly would descend upon him and smite him down yet again. But he didn’t feel relief; instead, he felt even guiltier. Yes, Carly had been drunk, and very willing to “do the nasty” once Noah “got the juices flowing,” but he’d still manipulated the entire situation to his advantage. And now she was quitting, because of him.

He asked himself one question over and over: was it worth it? After it had happened, the answer had been a resounding “yes.” After Carly had chastised him for revealing their secret, his answers had been split, half “yes,” half “no.” But as the days passed, the percentage of “no” answers steadily increased, and they now stood at ninety percent. Noah reckoned he was developing this “conscience” thing people always droned on about, and he didn’t like it.

He’d actually dropped hints about his struggle to several people in the store, Thomas and Vernon included. Thomas, mystified that Noah seemed to be asking his advice, told him not to worry: “Carly’s worried about her social status more than anything. If you were some stud, she wouldn’t be complaining one bit.” When Noah had frowned at this, Thomas had shrugged: “Just being honest. You’re not a stud. You’re… well, you .”

Vernon’s advice had been slightly more colorful: “People tell you to grab the bull by the horns, but then when you do, they say ‘Whoa, now, don’t hurt the poor animal!’ Why, I remember when I was a young’un, chasing after the girls — don’t squint at me like that, this white-haired old man you see now used to have pep in his step, and a tingle in his dingle, I tell you — well, if those girls started to have second thoughts about their fornications with their men, buyer’s remorse, you know, we’d just laugh and move on to the next one! No point in listening to a bunch of touchy-feely horsecrap from some female who suddenly decides she’s as pure as the Virgin Mary.” He paused and studied Noah. “On the other hand, it’s good that you’re feeling a bit guilty. Shows you’ve got some heart — which is good, cuz you’re sure lacking in the brains department!”

“Yeah, I know about Orianna and Carly quitting,” Thomas said now. “What about Noah? I’m thinking he might be ready to quit too.”

“Maybe,” Vernon said, sighing. “We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we? Though he is working harder than he was. I thought I’d have to fire him because of lackadaisical-esness, but he’s pulling his weight now.”

After he’d been banished from Carly’s presence, Noah shuffled around the store pathetically for a few days. He could no longer loiter up front and stare at her body, and he didn’t know what else he could do to pass the time. How was he going to survive his four-hour shift? Maybe he should try doing some real work for once — then he shook his head angrily. Work? Had it really come to that?

No, it wasn’t a preferable option, but he figured he’d try it out anyway. It was better than moping around like a lost puppy. To his surprise, he found out that time moved pretty quickly if you were actually engaged in the work. He would front and clean shelves, and hours would pass by unnoticed. It was strange, but satisfying. Time acted like this when he played video games, but he hadn’t known it could act like this when you were doing a menial task. Once, he even looked up to hear Vernon perplexedly questioning him, since he was still cleaning shelves when it was ten minutes to closing, and he’d done none of the close-down procedures, such as retrieving the shopping carts from the lot or bringing Vernon’s truck around to the front of the store. (“So the burglars don’t get me and the money-bag when I leave for the night,” Vernon would say, only half-jokingly.) Noah just had to shrug and say that time had gotten away from him.