As I was stocking canned goods, Lenora brushed past me and whispered under her breath: Wonder where they got the new girl from. She nodded to the end of the aisle where I saw half a checkout counter and a pair of forearms drawing packages of pasta under the scanner.
I shrugged. As I see it, some things aren’t meant to be known. All I know is: when the store opened this morning, a new girl appeared at the checkout counter as if by magic. The manager never made an announcement. Never explained why the change. Just went about his business as if things had always been like this.
Maybe she comes from the same place as the Customers.
I looked both ways along the aisle and, climbing down from my stool, whispered for Lenora to be quiet.
Maybe it was a mistake opening up to her. It’s just that, sometimes, after the store closes, and after we go down below, it gets lonely sitting there in the dark with these unruly thoughts rolling around inside my head. I like Lenora, and I hoped maybe it would be less lonely if I shared even a few of my thoughts.
One night, when the others were singing songs around a makeshift fire, I had drawn Lenora to a far corner, and there in the darkness we huddled and I talked to her. It’s such a difficult thing to trust people, and I had great hopes for Lenora. I told her how I sometimes feel doubts. Sometimes it seems to me that the employee manual isn’t the last word on things. There are things left out. Not on purpose of course. It’s not like the people who wrote the manual meant to deceive us. But how could they know? How could they anticipate what life would be like in a modern grocery store? Take cash registers for example. In the manual, they wrote about them as if you have to push the keys down instead of using a digital keypad. And absolutely no mention of bar code scanners.
Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be a Customer? I asked.
The Customer’s always right. She rhymed off the platitude like an autonomic response. Like breathing. She didn’t even stop to think maybe it was irrelevant to our conversation.
Yeah. Sure. Whatever. But what do they do?
Lenora looked at me like I was a prize idiot. They shop for food of course.
I know. But after that?
They take their food home and eat it.
And after they’ve finished eating?
Lenora shrugged.
I have such an intimation of things. It’s a powerful feeling that comes over me: there must be more than my straight-forward life in the grocery store. And yet, because it’s all I know, I can’t imagine what that more might be. I don’t even have words to give it shape.
And then the new girl appeared, and when Lenora wondered where she came from, I thought it was logical to suppose that she came from the same place as our Customers.
Lenora thought that was silly. She said: Everyone knows that if you work for the grocery store, it’s because your parents worked for the grocery store, and their parents before them, and so on into the misty past.
Where in the employee manual does it say an employee can’t come from outside?
Lenora shrugged. I don’t think the manual says one thing or another. It’s just not done.
After the store closed, we went down below with everyone else. The new girl was there too, but because no one else was talking to her, we didn’t either. She seemed strange in a lonely sort of way. She sat on her side of the fire and all the rest of us sat on our side. We stared at her through the fire, pretending to focus on the flames, but secretly trying to figure out what she must be like and what she was doing here.
When people weren’t looking, I took Lenora by the hand and led her to the ladder where we climbed back upstairs. We snuck through the darkened aisles of toilet paper and laundry detergent, peanut butter and microwave popcorn. We sat on pallets of sparkling water and gazed out the big front window into the darkness of the world beyond. It’s hard to imagine what life is like amongst the Customers.
Do you ever wonder where the food comes from? I asked.
From the trucks, silly. Haven’t you ever watched them back up to the loading dock?
But before that. How’d the food get into the trucks in the first place?
Lenora shook her head. It’s too much to think about.
I heard a rumour today. I lowered my head and we nestled close to one another. I heard that there are other grocery stores.
No.
Big ones. With fruits we’ve never dreamed of. And flavours of soup we never knew existed.
No.
A voice cried out from the darkness. You two get back down below before someone from outside sees you! The manager caught us. He stood in the light by the trap door and waited with his arms crossed until we passed him and climbed into the caverns beneath the grocery store. I retreated to my hovel where I sat for a time, remembering all that my parents had taught me about the grocery store. When I woke in the morning, I woke from dreams of stocking shelves, but the shelves went on forever, and no matter how many pallets rolled off the truck, there would always be shelves to fill. I was glad to wake up. I like shelves that have an end to them.
The day unfolded like any other. After breakfast around the fire pit, the manager gathered us in a huddle and offered the usual words of encouragement. Customer satisfaction is our top priority. We strive to deliver a memorable shopping experience. A smile as big as a watermelon. Stuff like that. When I wasn’t clicking prices on soup tins, I was cleaning smashed jars of spaghetti sauce in aisle four.
Late in the afternoon, while I was bagging groceries for a Customer, I saw a strange-looking man come into the store. He wore a black coat so long it almost dragged on the ground. He had a grizzled face and dark glasses and a pony tail.
You work here, son? he said to me.
I nodded uh-huh but was too afraid to say much else. He tossed a chewed-up toothpick onto the ground. Climbing onto the checkout counter , he shouted for everyone to listen up because he had something important to say. A new day has come to Groceryland, he proclaimed.
The manager stepped forward and told us to get back to work. Turning to the man in the long coat, he said: You’re being disruptive. If you don’t stop, I’ll have to call the authorities.
The man in the long coat laughed and clapped a hand over the manager’s mouth. Are you gonna listen to this man? Are you gonna go down below every night and shiver around your puny little fire? Why do that when you could live up here all the time? Or better yet, smash the windows and live in the fresh air and the sunlight?
I raised my hand, timid at first, but he didn’t seem to mind me asking questions: Uh, I heard—it may just be silly, but—I heard—please don’t laugh—but, is it true that there are other grocery stores?
The man in the long coat laughed, but not in a way that was condescending. Of course there are, he said. But it’s better than that. Why go to a grocery store when you can go right to the source? Have you ever had an apple, son?
I’ve heard of applesauce. Comes mushed up in a jar.
Ha! Where do you think that mush comes from?
A truck?
Wrong. It comes from apples. And apples grow on trees. And if you want, you can climb an apple tree and pull off an apple and eat it right then and there. Ever seen a tree, son?
No, sir. Except pictures on packaging.
Oranges grow on trees. And pears, and cherries.
How about rutabagas?
No, they’re something altogether different. But let’s not get distracted. The point is: you don’t have to live your whole life in a grocery store.
After the man left, chaos erupted. The manager lost control of the situation. Jeff on the express register closed his till and heaved an empty cart through the front window. Maddie at the deli counter went berserk with ketchup bottles, squirting graffiti messages on all the walls. Randy, who worked mostly at the loading dock, well, Randy said he was standing by the manager on this one and he was damned if he’d let anyone out of the grocery store. He tried to build a barrier from pop cases, but as fast as he stacked them, others pulled them down. Rita in the bakery refused to go down below ever again and cleared a space in the produce section for the evening fire.
This is the sad part of my story:
There comes a time in every grocery clerk’s life when he has to make a choice. Either settle in for a lifetime of stocking shelves and serving Customers. Or step through the front doors and explore the world beyond the grocery store. Ever since this afternoon, when the stranger in the long coat arrived at the store and told me about apples, well, I had made my choice. I decided I want to eat apples straight from the tree. And I want to do a thousand other things besides. So I gathered my things into a couple eco-friendly shopping bags and stood by the smashed front window to say my good-byes. I didn’t leave right away because I was hoping Lenora would see what I was doing and ask to come along too.
Lenora did see what I was doing, but instead of asking to come along too, she got angry. She yelled at me and beat her fists on my chest. Tears ran down her cheeks and she told me I was a coward. I was abandoning my home, my friends. I was betraying my grocery store heritage. When she was done, I asked one more time if she would come with me, but as she got close to the open window, she began to tremble and she pulled away. I turned and walked into the night with all the stars shining their wonder down on me. And I couldn’t help but note a strangeness in my heart. Even though I felt a lift at the prospect of a new adventure, it was tainted by a feeling of regret. If Lenora couldn’t come with me, why couldn’t she be happy for me? Why did she have to be so angry?