Shift

A "slurpee shack" cashier experiences the kidnapping of his little sister...

 

Summer bleaches the sidewalks and the power cords are taut just like my 7-11 uniform, except at the places where my sister’s old muddy tennis shoes would collect rain. My shirt and my tongue weren’t so clean either, stained with atomic blue Icee syrup. Since I’ve escaped from living with my deadbeat father in Philly six weeks ago, all I’ve amounted myself to is a working stiff.  Long hours and long shadows reflect on the paved knoll in front of the gas station. A certain wicked giggling trickles into my ears, a feeling similar to earwigs nesting inside my brain. Then, there they are, like stale biscuits with legs, four PM sharp and on time, trudging up the glorious mass of asphalt.

“Like clockwork,” I mutter and bend down to retrieve some Marlboros for some red-eyed business executive.

“Keep an eye on those girls, would you?” Dean, 7-11 god and manager demands. “The more they come in here, the dirtier my store becomes.”

I roll my eyes and brace myself. A man with the briefcase stops to buy a pack of cheap razors, a Coke, and a hot dog. Sick stuff, what is the genetic makeup of gas station hot dogs? He turns around to make a costly phone call. I glance back outside. As I pick out their soft features growing larger in proximity, I recognize my kid sister Nell amongst their kelly-green vested gang. Dear God, I had hoped this wouldn’t happen. Those girls are nothing but planned smirks, squabbles, sexual innuendo, and the worst of all: shoplifting.

“Carson!!” she squeals, throwing her arms around me. She takes a bite of the hot dog I was ringing up for the customer. Grinning, she pokes my other shoulder and watches me turn around like a fool. She purses her lips to give me a geranium kiss on my cheek. She flashes a grin over her shoulder, never noticing the items being shoved into the pockets of the other girls.

 “Nelly? What are you doing?” cackle the girls. Dean turns from the gumball machine he was finally refilling and glares at me. His eyes are seething, his head splits back over to them and tells them to leave or next time they would really pay.

            Nell pleads holding a dulled A&W bottle cap in her palm. Its edges gleam under the fluorescent lights. She undoubtedly wants to add this to her gigantic bottle cap collection at home. She is always adding to her collection to give to her little friend who moved away last year. Poor Nell has never gotten over that she’s most likely moved on and has new friends. I can’t say no to her either. The other girls are pushing other various tidbits into their pockets and snickering.

            “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she smiles. “See you at six!”

“You know him?” laugh the girl as they leave with bunches of shiny gumballs breaking between their teeth. Nell’s eyes grow wide and when I wave good-bye, she averts them. She nervously laughs and they turn outside.

            “She’s your little sister?” Dean asks. “Sweet girl, reminds me of my Sophie until she got her smart mouth. Guess that’s the only thing I don’t miss.”

            “Can’t be that bad as those girls,” I say. “Where is she?”

“She moved in with her mother last year,” he hesitates. “I miss her more and more each day.”

            “I’m sorry,” I say. “Well, Nell’s a good kid.”

             “But those damn scouts keep trying to teach her that risqué middle-school crap,” he growls. “I’d keep an eye on her. That’s why Sophie had to move away. No daughter of mine is ever going to end up like them.”

            “Well, be sure to tell me when she’s around, because Nell’s a good kid and could use some better friends.”

He shakes his head with disapproval and opens the door to leave. His eyes flit to me and I gulp my breath.

 “Don’t you think about it neither,” he bellows as he slams the door behind him. “I know what you are thinking. You know I saw you leave early yesterday.”

“It won’t happen again,” I lie, however probably very unconvincingly by the look on his face peering through the glass. “Sir.”

“I know you won’t. You think I’m stupid, but, boy, I’ve been around.” His voice burns like acid between ears. “I’m watching you.” 

The gas station quivers as I watch as his bulky legs pump down the hill and his wiry black hair splintering in the sun. My eyes glaze, my head pounding, I lay it down in the filmy paper from Nell’s hot dog. At least now, I can tell Nell some good news rather than my average surly expression that sums up the ‘best years of my life’.

Nell has always Mom and Dad’s favorite, and you know what? I don’t mind.  I don’t mind at all. She deserves it.  She is a very smart girl, always reading my old books and questions science. Especially fond of mythology, she draws creatures from her imagination in such skill that probably surpasses my own.  I decide that I’ll talk to Dean about Nell and Sophie when I saw him next.

I cannot remember the last time I had not closed early. It was my own torture, each gasoline and artificially flavored minute seemed to mock my failing marks at school and neon lights burn my retinas, the ache of hunger churns within the being of my speckled flesh, and Donnie has not shown up yet. It’s all on Donnie that I’m stuck in this two-bit slurpee shack until kingdom come. If I have to rearrange the Tastykakes stand the lethargic group of chubby Girl Scouts disassembled one more time, I promise to Jesus, to Mister Rogers, to the Forty Thieves that I’ll flip the damn ‘We’re Open’ sign before they can even pull together their nickels. Then I’ll have my chance to go loaf in the usually locked bathrooms and smoke. I need them to stop hanging around my Nell. She’s a good kid, but those girls are nothing but bad influence. It’s been nothing but shoplifting to cursing like a sailor with her since they summoned us to the door with bribes of peanut butter sandwich cookies and those funky ones with coconut in them.

I jump at the proverbial sound of the door groaning and that impervious scent of automobile oil. Donnie. Great. I would leave, but all he does is ignore the customers, read muscle car magazines, and smoke weed in the men’s room. Here he comes in giggling so much; I could only assume he’d already done the latter. He’s thirty-six and he still has not gotten a hold of himself.

“Hey man,” he laughs, tossing his plaid jacket behind the counter. “Man, I just saw Dean going after our Brownie thieves.”

“Really?” I say, stopping to roll my eyes.

“You bet, man, you know him,” he says. “Says they’ve been defacing the cemetery over there, on top of the hill.”

“Fantastic, I just hope he’ll leave Nell out of it.”

“Nelly-with them?” he asks. “How is she doing?”

“She’s just fine, doing great in literacy and science at school.”

“Oh,” he says. “Well, I’d like to invite you two to my house for dinner sometime.”

“Sure, Donnie, sure.”

            When I step into my house later on, my ears are thrumming with an eerie silence. Mom is sleeping lonesome in her bed, snoring softly. I jump with the delicate, yet frantic knock on the door. I tug on the door open and peer out at the dizzying stars. Below the waning moon, a little girl wearing a green sash is shaking with terror.

            “Adrien! I’ll pay the cookie order tomorrow, all right? Once I have my paycheck,” I say within my groggy splendor. A gust of humid wind cracks against my face and my eyes widen. “Why aren’t you at home, Adrien?”

            “I can’t find her! I can’t find her, Carson!” she cries.

            “Can’t find who?” I ask.

Her pleading Bambi eyes stare into mine and then dart away. Suddenly, I know.

 

            The next couple weeks are filled with shrieking sirens, lights, stern looks, stainless fear, and then the endless inquisition. They say they searched the whole state. They say they put up an Amber Alert. They say they tried the best they could. But they never say they found my little sister. Our desperation is at its peak, everyone had tried helping. Mom cannot sleep or eat anymore; she prefers to stare at the telephone sitting on the floor. Most people have given up on her, except Donnie. He can be a nuisance, but bless his soul, a freaking sweetheart; he’s always trying to make it up to me.

            “Carson, the boss is like Columbo, man,” squeaks Donnie.

            “All the more reason for you to cover for me,” I say. “I’m going home.”

 “Get him on this, and that guy is nailed.”

I shake my head, “Look, I don’t want Dean in this.”

“I’m just saying…I’m just saying that he could really do this guy some damage.”

“Does a crow s**t in the treetops?” I fume.  My hands are shaking. “Of course he could, but nobody even can find a trace of this guy…or even her for that matter!”

“Dude, I’m really sorry,” he says. “I wish there was more I could do. I miss that smile.”

“No, no, you’re just trying to help,” I say. “But I just don’t want to keep holding onto this possibility… that’s she’s still around-- if it’s only disappointment after disappointment.”

“She’s probably right under our noses, Carson.”

            It’s that time again, four sharp. Great. Just what I needed. The girls now have quarters and were pillaging the gumball machine. They step away, hands cupping a rainbow of fruity marbles. Adrien steps out of the group and slides her quarter in and watched as a bottle cap rolled down the spiral path into the trap. She turns it over in between her fingers and starts to sob.

            “God, Adrien,” complains one of the older girls. “You can have one of mine; I don’t even like these puke- green ones.”

            “Sophie would have liked this,” she cries, almost indecipherably through the running wetness of her nose. “And she’ll never ever see it, it’s just so sad.”

            “I’ll just give it to Dean, Adrien,” I say, in attempt to comfort her. “He’ll probably see her for picnics this Labor Day.” Immediately, she sobs more intensely and deeply.

            “Carson!” Donnie murmurs and motions for me to come closer. “Sophie is gone, man.”

            “What do you mean she’s gone?” I demand, my brain slowly unwrapping the answer. “That would explain why Dean hasn’t been around these past couple weeks. What happened?”

            “Nobody knows how, how do you ask a guy that?”

            “You ask me that all the time,” I mumble. “So Sophie has gone missing too, you’re saying?”

            “Dude, she died over a year ago.” His cigarette leads a vapor trail and glows red at the end.

            Adrien sniffs and walks solemnly off to the women’s bathroom on the opposite side of the building.

            “Hey, it’s locked!” she calls out. I expected that.

            The girls laugh and gather to leave. Donnie grabs the keys and swings them around his index finger, whistling on his way over to unlock the door over. Seconds later, Donnie calls out that the door won’t budge. So I stumble over the gumballs on the floor to help. Soon enough we are trying to unscrew the doorknob to get through. Adrien wipes her eyes with her sleeve. A weak wavering voice chokes and groans within the dark behind the door.

            “Mister Dean,” Nell’s voice begs. “Please let me out, I’m good, I’ll be a good girl, just please.”

            I cry her name and she confirms it by calling my name. Our hair plasters to our foreheads as Donnie and I beat the door in frenzy. The door mashes and cracks my hands, now every shade of red and violet. From behind, Dean’s voice resonates and suddenly its tremor fills the marrow of my bones with hatred. Donnie flips around and he pushes him onto the concrete.

 “What happened to Sophie, Dean?” he shouts and feeds it into a harsh repetition. He kicks him every time he does not answer. Dean puts his hand on the dirty ground and pushes himself up.

“What she deserved, damn it!” he barks and motions to the bewildered Girl Scouts standing inside, pressed up against the glass. “Donnie, would you let your sweet daughter turn into one of those rats?”

I stare at him incredulously and in awe, the young father of my sister.  He looks at me with shame under his lazy hooded eyes. Next thing I know, Donnie, tears forming a puddle on his upper lip, is flinging his lit cigarette into the shiny pool of gasoline two meters away.

The air creaks and a flood of heat scorches my back. Fiery mist sweeps over the ashen lot. The sky glows sienna and its molten golden embers weave through wisps of the air. Smoke fills my lungs, tasting like what I could imagine a mechanic’s handkerchief might. I hear Nell’s tiny voice screaming hysterically inside and adrenaline rushes through my body more than any amount of coffee ever had, I admit. I kick the door down and I smell the underlying scent of singed bubble gum. She is lying down against the sink, her once mousy brown hair blackened. I scoop her up and she cries, “Carson!”  I rub my thumb across her cheek and think I could muster a tear. I carry her, running, following the shrieking girls. Donnie and Dean are lying still on the angry earth as we flee. She points at Donnie and asks if I am going to help him. At the top of the hill, I cover her eyes as the girls and I stare out at the remains of the 7-11. I look around and notice we are in the graveyard. Just a few rows of tombstones away, there is a grave with the name “Sophie Michelle Dean” embossed in neat lettering. She was only eight.

“Let go. You can trust me,” she whispers and takes that orange and brown bottle cap from the

pocket of her shirt. She stoops down next to her grave and takes a scoop of earth. The girls all sit around the grave. Already inside the trough are dozens of shiny bottle caps of every kind.  She wipes her eyes and takes my hand and on the way home, she tells me all about it

Author's Note

Tell me what you earnestly think.

Reviews

[Sara Henry Heistand]

Awww. Wow, Allie. Your descriptions were different and pristine. I loved them! I never heard them before - definitely unique!

It's still a little wordy since the first time I read it - the first sentence sticking out in my mind. You mention "stiff" and "starch" when "stiff as my 7-11 uniform" would suffice. Also - maybe make a mention of the graveyard earlier in the story so it doesn't seem hokey. Maybe Carson sees the girls trot off to the graveyard. Bad asses that they are. But in reality they're taking bottle caps to the grave of a classmate. Also, maybe have an excuse as to why Carson was the only one not to know about Sophie's death. Maybe he was in foster care or skipped town for a bit to recollect his thoughts? I wouldn't tell the whole story, but enough to give the reader a decent understanding. Also, somewhere in the middle you switch past tense to present tense and then back again. I can understand the appeal of putting the reader into the story for that moment, but it'd work better if the piece were uniform in that light.

I love the parallels you give to Carson and Dean. They're both extremely protective - obviously Dean being more so. It really gives us an excuse to understand Dean's behavior.

I think you took on a really good idea in a very interesting way. This could've fit a novel to explain everything and to exaggerate the action, but I think this is definitely a piece to gaze at and go, "Holy s**t. This is good."