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__________________________________________________________________________
/\ \
\_| |
| .___ ________ __ _________.__ __ |
| | | / _____/ _____/ |_ / _____/| |__ _____/ |_ |
| | | / \ ___ / _ \ __\ \_____ \ | | \ / _ \ __\ |
| | | \ \_\ ( <_> ) | / \| Y ( <_> ) | |
| |___| \______ /\____/|__| /_______ /|___| /\____/|__| |
| \/ \/ \/ |
| _____ __ ___________.__ |
| / _ \_/ |_ \__ ___/| |__ ____ |
| / /_\ \ __\ | | | | \_/ __ \ |
| / | \ | | | | Y \ ___/ |
| \____|__ /__| |____| |___| /\___ > |
| \/ \/ \/ |
| _________ .__ .__ ____ __. |
| \_ ___ \|__|______ ____ | | ____ | |/ _| |
| / \ \/| \_ __ \_/ ___\| | _/ __ \ | < |
| \ \___| || | \/\ \___| |_\ ___/ | | \ |
| \______ /__||__| \___ >____/\___ > |____|__ \ |
| \/ \/ \/ \/ |
| |
| And fucking fired for it... |
| Six/DLoC |
| _____________________________________________________________________|_
\_/_______________________________________________________________________/
"GIVE ME ALL THE GOD DAMN MONEY, MOTHERFUCKER!", he shouted, waving the gun
back and forth by my face.
As I fumbled awkwardly at the buttons on the register, the thought occurred to
me that at least that asshole Denny was going to have to clean up the mess
my brains were going to make against the back wall - and that it'd ruin his
shitty little bobblehead collection. I don't know why, but I snickered.
"YOU THINK I'M FUCKIN AROUND YOU LITTLE BITCH?"
The gun went off. It sounded like a cannon. I had been around guns my entire
life, but I'd never realized how loud they were when they were pointed at you.
Fire seared through the side of my stomach, and I fell on the floor clutching
at my side and screaming. I'd like to say I didn't piss myself, but that
wouldn't be true.
Let me rewind a bit... It was 1986, and I was working at a shitty Circle K
by the local university. I wasn't actually OLD enough to work there, but I
used "The World's Shittiest Fake Id" (tm) to convince them otherwise. I was
in there one day intending to shoplift a 40oz, saw the help wanted sign on
the door and figured I could steal way more stuff if I was there all night by
myself.
So I filled out their application, lied my ass off, and got the job.
"You look about 12 fuckin' years old, you sure you're 18?", and "You know this
is nights?", and "You know the last guy got shot, right?" were the only
interview questions. They were pretty desperate to fill the position, and the
night shift there had a dire reputation. I wasn't too concerned, though - I
wasn't planning on giving anyone any trouble if they wanted to rob the place.
The store manager was a serious asshole, in the way only the sort of prick who
aspires to manage a Circle K can be. His name was Denny and he was clearly
one of those frustrated guys who spends their entire life hoping no-one finds
out they're gay and resenting everyone for it. I would have felt sorry for
the guy - I've always hated bigotry of any form, and hating someone because of
what they do in their bedroom is especially stupid - but he was just such an
asshole.
Denny was obsessed with the back wall of the counter area. He had an entire
collection of bobbleheads on a shelf up there, with one special one he'd had
custom made to look like him. It took a lot of self control on my part not
to draw dicks on it, but I thought he might actually have some sort of
mental breakdown if I did.
There were 5 or 6 other people working there at the time. I only ever met 3
of them.
An old guy named Bill worked the 7AM-3PM shift. He was pretty sad.
I guess when you're 60 and working the counter at a convenience store, you
have a lot to regret in life. Bill didn't talk much, just kind of glared at
the floor and looked sad.
There was an old lady, I think her name was Dana or Doris or something like
that, she'd be there instead of Bill on the weekends. She seemed to be edging
up on senility, used to call me "honey" all the time. I think she thought I
was one of her grandkids. Doris would bring me candy and tell me stories
about growing up during the Depression.
I heard some guy named Tony who was like 7 feet tall worked the night shift
when I wasn't there, but I'd never seen him. The last thing I was going to do
on my night off was go to the Circle K. I'd meet him years later when he
was working as a bouncer in a club, he really was about 7 feet tall.
A younger guy named Rob worked the 3PM-11PM shift. He was the friendliest of
the bunch. Rob considered himself the foremost expert on picking up women,
and to his credit, he seemed to be pretty adept at it. I always went in early
for my shift to help him stock the walk-in coolers. We'd smoke weed in
there and drink a few beers while we were at it. No-one noticed because the
vent fans would blow it out to the back of the building.
Rob's favorite scam was the lift and return. He'd take some expensive item
from the store, hide it, and then write it up as a "return" the next day. As
for me, I preferred simpler scams. I'd call my roommates in to "shop", and not
ring them up - well, that, and load up on free beer every night.
Besides return fraud, Rob's other favorite pastime was heckling me about how I
was going to get shot. It wasn't a stretch of the imagination, the previous 3
or 4 night shift guys had all been shot in robberies. At least one of them
had been killed. From time to time Rob would show up during my shift and set
off firecrackers outside the store. Sometimes he would burst in the front
door and yell "FREEZE, MOTHERFUCKER!" The first time he did that I
instinctively ducked down behind the counter. It was several weeks before
he let me live that down.
For the most part, the people who came in the store during the night shift
were pretty dull. There were lots of people who lived in the area but worked
late shifts at the factories over by the interstate. There were a bunch who
worked at the various hospitals around the university. Cops would stop in
a few times a night to get their free coffee. Occasionally, people would try
to sell me drugs or fake jewelry - it was always crap.
I eventually got to know some of the crazier street people from the area -
at least they were interesting.
There was one guy who would come in and panhandle almost every night. His
story never changed in the several months I worked there. He claimed to be
a preacher and needed gas money for the church bus, because all the kids were
in it stuck by the side of the highway.
Another guy would come in - I'd been warned about him - and try to jerk off on
the feminine hygiene products in the back. They even had a polaroid of him
taped to the wall behind the counter, and a special stick for chasing him out
of the store. They called him "Tugger John". (I had no idea at the time that
they were making a joke about some character from M.A.S.H., but realized it
as I was typing this file. Tugger John looked like a sterotypical pervert and
even wore a trenchcoat like some flasher from the movies. If you've ever
seen "Revenge of the Nerds", he looked like the guy at the police station who
was arrested for "mopery".
The big entertainment was at 2AM when the nightclub across the street would
close. The sidewalks and street outside would suddenly fill up with drunk
college kids. After the first time Denny found someone passed out in the back
room at the start of day shift, I learned to lock the doors until the crowd
thinned out. They'd always hound me about the bathroom (there was no public
bathroom) and vomit on the floor - I was sick of that after the first time.
I'd been working there for about 2 months when I got robbed the first time. A
guy came in, and I immediately could tell he was going to be a problem. He
seemed like he was waiting for the place to be empty, and kept looking over at
the counter out of the corner of his eye. When someone would come in and
make a beeline for the farthest point from the counter, you just knew they
were going to cause trouble.
As soon as there weren't any customers in the store, he ran over to the
counter, took out a knife, and demanded the contents of the register. I'd
expected that, though, so I'd dropped all but $20 in the safe. He took the
$20 and bolted. Denny took the $20 out of my check - that miserable prick -
and didn't even file a police report.
Things were pretty calm for the next month or so, and I'd gotten into a steady
routine. I knew most of the problem people on sight and would run them off
if they caused any trouble.
One night, I'd just got done loading my roommates up with beer, and was
looking forward to getting home. It was about 3AM when a guy came in
carrying a big brown bag. He immediately went to the back of the store and
started pushing stuff into his bag. I think it was athelete's foot spray.
"HEY, YOU CAN'T JUST TAKE STUFF!", I yelled.
"THE FUCK I CAN'T!", He yelled back.
I got the stick we used to drive Tugger John out of the store and started to
come around from behind the counter. That's when I saw the gun.
"GET BACK BEHIND THAT COUNTER, ASSHOLE!"
I did exactly that. I knew I was in serious trouble this time. I'd had guns
pointed at me before, but this time... everything about that guy screamed that
no matter what I did, I wasn't going to be leaving the Circle K alive.
Even now, I can't recall a time when I was ever more certain that I was going
to die. It's a feeling that anything I type here can't come close to
describing - just cold down in your guts somewhere, and you feel small.
All your petty concerns, all your conceits, they evaporate, lift off of
your conciousness like a fog. You're left with probably the most honest
sense of the world, just a dangerous place that doesn't care if you live or
die.
"GIVE ME ALL THE GOD DAMN MONEY, MOTHERFUCKER!", he shouted, waving the gun
back and forth by my face.
Everyone would like to think that in times like this, they'll be the world's
biggest badass, maybe say something tough sounding and grab the gun and shove
it up the guy's ass. That's not how it works in real life. I was just trying
not to shit in my pants and remember how to open the register.
As I fumbled awkwardly at the buttons on the register, the thought occurred to
me that at least that asshole Denny was going to have to clean up the mess
my brains were going to make against the back wall - and that it'd ruin his
shitty little bobblehead collection. I don't know why, but I snickered.
"YOU THINK I'M FUCKIN AROUND YOU LITTLE BITCH?"
The gun went off. It sounded like a cannon. I had been around guns my entire
life, but I'd never realized how loud they were when they were pointed at you.
Fire seared through the side of my stomach, and I fell on the floor clutching
at my side and screaming. I'd like to say I didn't piss myself, but that
wouldn't be true.
I lay there on the floor for a moment, writhing in my own blood and piss,
certain that I was about to die. If I'm grateful for one thing, it's that
time didn't slow down from my perspective and give me a chance to think about
the ignomony of dying on a filthy convenience store floor at the hands of an
athelete's foot spray thief.
I heard the guy coming around the counter - I assumed to finish the job. I
knew I was fucked. The only two weapons at hand were the Tosser John stick
and a drywall hammer, and neither seemed like they'd be particularly useful
against a gun.
Suddenly, I heard this loud "POP POP POP POP POP" sound from outside the front
of the store. Athelete's foot guy stopped and turned to look.
To this day I'm not completely sure what happened. One second I was on the
floor ready to die, and the next I was standing behind that guy with every
single millimeter of that drywall hammer's claw embedded in the back of his
head. He sort of twitched for a second, and just collapsed.
Rob walked in, sure he'd scared me with his firecracker gag again, clearly
unprepared for the scene. I was covered in blood, piss, and snot, and there
was a slowly widening pool of blood on the floor next to a guy with a drywall
hammer sticking out of the back of his head. Athelete's foot spray cans were
scattered around the floor.
We called 911, they were surprisingly quick to show up. The cops took my
statement, Rob's statement - the guy on the floor wasn't in any shape to give
a statement, but was breathing at least. In the end, the cops had the guy (I
never did find out his name) hauled away in an ambulance and gave Rob a ticket
for possession of illegal fireworks.
I turned out that I actually hadn't been shot, just grazed. It may even have
been a piece of the counter that hit me in the side - there was a hole in it
by where I'd been standing.
By that time it was well past 7AM, and Bill had shown up for his shift. I
went home. Even after all of that, I was still planning on working the next
night. It was a shit job, but the money was OK for what I actually had to do,
and I figured the odds were pretty low on getting shot (or shot at) again.
My intentions were a moot point. Denny called me that afternoon to tell me I
was fired for assaulting someone in the store. I heard that Athelete's Foot
Spray guy sued Circle K over it. I also heard that Denny went to prison for
embezzling money from the store. Rob still lives by the University, I think,
I haven't seen him in several years.
As for me, I found an even worse job, but that's a story for another time.
__________________________________________________________________________
/\ \
\_| That's all, folks! Be sure to pick up the latest DLoC text files, |
| available on our website and our BBS HQ. Coming soon, the story of |
| why you don't break into my house. |
| -Six/DLoC signing off... |
| The Darkside BBS: telnet://thedarkside.dnsalias.net:6969 |
| _____________________________________________________________________|_
\_/_______________________________________________________________________/
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