Small flakes of ancient paint scattered like green dandruff as Marty petted the side of the monster with mock affection. Regardless of when it had actually been built, Marty was right about one thing—it was enormous.
“I’ll show you how it all works after Monday’s truck,” Marty said, tapping the control box on the side of the baler. “You’ll get the hang of it ’fore long.”
“Mondays are when the truck comes?”
“They didn’t tell you a goddamn thing, did they?”
Ben shook his head.
“The trucks come Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,” Marty said, as they walked deeper into the back room. “We block the other nights—line everything up on the shelves so it all looks like one solid block.”
“Stocking and blocking,” Ben said.
“And rocking,” Marty said flatly, gesturing without enthusiasm to the dull music that dripped from the speakers above. “This here’s the break room.”
The space was fairly unadorned. There was a plastic folding table in the middle of the floor with chairs tucked underneath. The white walls looked a sickly yellow under the old lights, though the left and back walls were mostly covered with posters that were meant to be motivational. They made even Ben roll his eyes, and he was too new to be jaded already. A camera was perched in the top corner where those walls met. Ben pointed at it and Marty shrugged.
The far wall was covered entirely with metal lockers, each marked with a name written on masking tape. At Marty’s prompting, Ben taped his name to a free locker and put his bagged lunch inside.
“You gotta bring your own lock,” Marty said, slipping a piece of paper into the slot of a locker belonging to someone named Frank. “We don’t really take breaks in here, but you can leave food or clothes or whatever in the locker. Don’t put anything in the fridge unless you’re trying to give it away.”
Marty closed a drawer and turned back to Ben. A green utility knife docked snugly in a leather holster dangled from his hand.
Ben arched his back and dug discreetly under his stomach for the waist of his pants, then slid the metal clip of the holster onto it. The boys walked back into the heart of Receiving, where the air conditioner again screamed against the walls and floor.
“That it then?” Ben shouted.
“Yeah,” Marty shouted back. “All ’cept them stairs.” He pointed to a rusted set of steps just to the right of the freezer. “There’s a few offices and a bathroom up there. Some stairs that spit out right around the pharmacy. Most of the rooms are Palmer’s. It’s where he looks down ladies’ shirts. Sometimes he accidentally busts a shoplifter. C’mon, I’ll show you what I mean.”
Marty led Ben back through the double doors. After getting a little distance, they turned toward the back of the store, and Marty pointed at a series of darkly tinted windows that nested up against the ceiling.
“The crow’s nest. You can see through all them windows. Captain Palmer sits up there all day and waits for someone to try to make off with something, since all them glass domes are empty and none of the real cameras work.” The span of Marty’s gesture encompassed the entire store. “Except for maybe that one. I heard that one works.”
“It does,” Ben muttered as he looked at the camera that hung over the deli racks. “None of the other cameras work?”
Marty looked at Ben curiously. “A hole in the earth could open up right where we’re standing, and Palmer would just rope it off. They don’t fix shit around here.”
It was five minutes before midnight, and Chelsea’s voice came over the intercom announcing the closing of the store.
“That’s our cue,” Marty said as he started walking toward the front of the store. “We got chair detail outside…But between the crow’s nest and that camera,” Marty continued, “Palmer is on the J-O-B.”
“He ever catch anyone?”
“You’d be surprised, and boy does he seem to get off on catching people. They steal more than you’d think, especially meat and drugs. A while back—” Marty’s own laughter interrupted him. “A while back, this lady grabbed a bunch of pills from the pharmacy, and Palmer saw it. Now, he usually waits for them to stroll toward the exit, ya know, so they can’t pretend they were gonna pay for it. Anyway, he’s watching her walk away, probably jerkin his dick, all excited to spring the trap.
“But then this lady just bolts for the exit. Like, out of nowhere, she just makes a beeline straight for the door on the other side of the store! When something like that happens, there’s these intercom codes you’re supposed to use. But Palmer”—Marty started chuckling—“Palmer comes on the intercom and goes, ‘I need…I…There’s…’ And she’s still gunning it. So finally, he just goes, ‘Thief! Thief! Get her! She’s getting away, damnit!’ The speakers were all busting out because he was screaming into the mic, and everyone’s just looking around trying to figure out what was going on.”
“So what happened?”
“She just ran right out the door! Palmer came down all red and out of breath and looked around like she would still be there. Then he just looked at everyone, even the customers, and put his hands out like, ‘You blew it!’ ”
Marty positioned himself to the right side of the front doors and reached up to flip a small switch secured to the trim of the metal frame. Ben watched as Marty turned the key and then grabbed the deadbolt at the center of the two doors and slid them apart, letting the air, which was thick and wet with humidity, leak into the store like a paste. The surrounding businesses were all long closed, and without their polluting lights, the stars above shone brightly in the clean sky.
Outside, Marty grabbed two plastic chairs that were stacked behind the propane cage and set them near the entrance. The two sat facing each other. Marty held his pack of smokes out and offered one to Ben, who declined as he forced his way into a chair that was a bit too snug.
Ben heard the bright click of a Zippo opening as Marty flicked his wrist. He lit his cigarette and the smoke curled in tendrils that danced gracefully upward despite the heaviness of the air, air that was so still the smoke collected in a gossamer curtain against the recessed lights in the awning above them. Ben watched small moths make puddles in the murky sheet as they tried to move ever closer to the light—Sisyphus reborn with wings.
Chelsea came outside. Ben offered her his chair, but she declined and left soon after. Ben watched her drive the last car out of the parking lot.
“Where’s your car?” Ben asked.
“Hmm? Oh, I don’t have one.”
Ben smiled as he realized what Marty had meant by “car troubles.”
Marty lit another cigarette while Ben wiped his face and neck with his handkerchief. The conversation dwindled, but not uncomfortably so, and the two sat in relative silence for a long while. Rhythmically, Marty swept his lighter open against his jeans, then closed it. Slink. Clink. Slink. Clink. Ben lowered his eyes from the lights above and fixed them straight ahead onto the board he had avoided hours earlier.
A silver frame outlined the large panel, hugging the two thin sheets of acrylic glass that protected the display beneath it. In big, bubbly blue letters that formed a faint arch, the banner read: HAVE YOU SEEN ME? Below this overly stylized header were a dozen or so black-and-white flyers for missing children. As if all the pieces of paper were blank save one, Ben’s eyes fell upon Eric’s face.
Eric’s features were a little distorted in the image—the inevitable result of photocopying duplicates of duplicates. The worst part of it, if such things could even be measured, was how old his brother’s flyer looked, worn and eroded. Exposed for so long the sun had stolen all the brightness from the sheet.
His eyes glazed over as they moved themselves across the board. Each flyer began with “My name is” followed by the child’s name in capital letters and ended with a phone number that probably didn’t ring as often as anyone hoped.
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“You good, man?” asked Marty.
The parking lot was dark, and cicadas and toads buzzed and bellowed from the woods across the street.
“Hmm? Yeah,” Ben blurted out. “Yeah, I’m good…So it’s just us all night?”
“Yeah, until the bread lady shows up. Usually around five or so?”
“She know you just call her the bread lady?” Ben chuckled.
“Hope not. I call her Ms. Beverly when I talk to her, and I try to make sure that doesn’t happen too often.”
“She that bad?”
“Just takes everything so serious. Like, we work at a grocery store, ya know? Ain’t never been a stocker she liked, ’cept for me, and even I don’t know why that is. She used to give me a real hard time, but she’s mellowed out some. She thinks we’re all a bunch of thieves.”
Ben nodded to a stolen candy bar that sat in Marty’s lap.
“But she don’t know anything. Just accuses everyone all the damn time. If I had a nickel for every time she’s said I stole her bread, I’d have enough money to pay for all the bread I really stole.” The two laughed. “You like the job so far?”
“I like chair detail,” Ben said.
“Most important part of the job, right here!” Marty said, slapping his armrest.
“You like working here?” Ben asked.
“It’s not so bad, really. Palmer’s a real piece of work. But the job itself is alright. Creepy at night by yourself sometimes. Weird place.”
“Why’s that?”
“Gets too quiet, I guess. Shit falls off shelves. I dunno. Don’t have to deal with customers, though, so…” Marty shrugged.
“Not a people person?”
“Depends on the people, I guess. Something about this town, man. Got real big after they finished that interstate a few years back. But in a hurry, ya know? Like people got off the interstate for gas and couldn’t figure out how to get back on, so they just threw a rock and built a house. ‘Fuck it. I’ll just live here in this random-ass neighborhood forever, I guess.’ But the town ain’t never caught up. Still got just the one hospital. My brother’s gotta share a desk at school. And the fuckin roads, man…”
“Too many tractors?” Ben grinned.
“Where the hell are they going anyways? Ain’t no farms around here. Not no more. Shit, we’re sitting where the last farm used to be before they paved and built over it.”
“What about that field past the woods out there?” Ben gestured toward the store’s sign, which stood as the last light for miles in that direction.
“What field? Oh, that baby field?” Marty waved his hand dismissively. “Idiots holding up the whole town so a tractor can farm some beans.”
“I think maybe it’s cotton.”
“That’s a kind of bean. Cotton bean.” He smiled.
Ben dug a granola bar out of his pocket and peeled the wrapper back before biting into it. He took deep breaths to pull the heavy air into his lungs as he stared straight ahead. The toes of his right foot pushed his leg up and down like a jackhammer.
“You sure you’re doing alright, man?” Marty asked.
“Huh?” Ben responded, before shaking his head faintly to snap his mind to attention. “Yeah, I’m good.”
“Depressing shit.” Marty sighed, gesturing at the board. “You might think about bringing out a magazine, since them don’t make for good reading.”
Ben feigned a chuckle.
“I reckon you and me are the only ones who’ve paid that board much mind at all. People just walk on by. Hardly even noticed it myself before I spent so much time sittin out here.
“I do wonder what happened sometimes,” Marty continued after a short while. “Especially to the older ones. Shoot, one of them was almost thirteen, you know? I went to elementary school with his sister, but I ain’t heard from her in a long time. Figure taking the little ones makes sense—perverts and all—but the older ones? You think they run away or something?”
“I dunno,” Ben mumbled.
“Gotta wonder where they might be running to. I guess sometimes with the younger ones it’s the folks. Maybe the daddy comes back and takes the kid. Wish my daddy woulda come and kidnapped me.”
Ben ran his fingers through his short hair, his eyes lingering on the board. He thought that Marty would have recognized him by now. But they’d never spoken before. Maybe Marty didn’t know anything about Ben, and Ben wondered whether he should try to preserve that ignorance. It wouldn’t last forever, but it could last for just a little while longer, before the pity came and tarnished everything. How long would that take, though? How many nights could he sit out in front of this bulletin board and deny he was staring at it?
Marty’s words were muted in Ben’s ears, and Ben was only somewhat aware of his own absent participation in the exchange. He could feel a quivering in his chest as his lips began to push out words.
“My brother,” Ben started, as he gestured toward the board and grunted through a dry throat, “my brother’s up there.”
Marty turned and looked at the board. “Jesus, dude.” His eyes went wide. “I can’t believe…Shit. I’m sorry; it just didn’t…goddamnit…it just didn’t click when I saw you, cuz you look different to me. Fuck.”
“It’s alright,” Ben said. “You was a grade above me, I think.”
The air was quiet for a moment. “What…what happened?” Marty finally asked, tentatively.
Wringing his hands together, Ben answered Marty’s question. “I…I lost him.”
Marty nodded almost imperceptibly. “Do you mean like someone took him? We don’t have to talk about this.”
“I dunno.” Ben had a nauseated and crooked smile on his face as he lightly slapped his hands together between his knees. “That’s all I can really say for sure, because that’s all I really know. And the crazy thing is”—Ben’s voice quivered as he gestured toward the store—“the thing that’s messing me up so bad is that it happened right here.” His voice cracked. “Right here in this store.”
Marty breathed out heavily. Smoke twisted upward from the cigarette between his fingers.
Ben wiped his nose with his handkerchief and laughed. “Man, what am I doing here? All the stuff you showed me, all them departments. Even the back room. I’ve seen it all before. I saw it when the police came and looked for him.”
When Ben told the story—when he talked about it with anyone—he tried his best to treat it like it was a story, like it was something that had happened to someone else. That was the only way he could get through it. Over the years, he’d developed a skill for it, but being at this place made him forget how to tell a story. All he could remember was the truth, so that’s what he told Marty.
He told him about the heat and the headache. About looking for Stampie the stuffed rhino later that same day but finding that someone must have already thrown him away. He told Marty about the hand dryer and how he had to keep calling his house until someone finally picked up. Until his stepmother finally picked up. About how his parents had asked the police for search dogs, and how the police hadn’t been able to acquire any from the neighboring town. And he told Marty about how the police had made him call for his brother as they walked the store.
Marty leaned forward in his chair, his elbows resting on his knees while he stared at Ben.
“He was supposed to fix the cameras after that. Palmer. He said he’d fix ’em.” Ben pressed and scraped his handkerchief against his palm. Back and forth, over and over. “I’m sorry for pouring all that stuff on you, Marty. I’m not usually—it’s just being back here…”
“Ain’t nothing to be sorry for, Ben,” Marty said. “I sure am sorry, though. I got a brother myself. I can’t…Jesus Christ, man.”
Neither spoke for a while.
“Hell of a first night, huh?” Marty said.
“Yeah.” Ben laughed, wiping his eyes with his knuckles. “I’m good now. I’m alright.” He breathed out a heavy sigh. “Your brother older or younger?”
“Younger. Aaron. A real pain in the ass too.”
“Think that’s a rule with younger brothers. Even Eric could fire me up sometimes.”
Marty dropped his lighter and leaned down to pick it up. “That’s his name? Eric?”
“Yeah.”
Marty nodded and stared out into the clear black sky. The ashes from his neglected cigarette had formed a long, unstable cylinder that broke off and scattered on his jeans. He brushed it onto the concrete while Ben talked.
“I just want to know what happened to him. I want to see him again. More than anything.” Ben wiped the sweat from his forehead with his kerchief. “Jeez, it’s really hot out here. Can we go back in? Is that alright?”
Marty flicked his dead cigarette into the parking lot and walked back inside without saying anything.
4
“Fat dumb idiot,” Ben muttered to himself. “Stupid fat dumb fuck.” His bad leg screamed as he swung it, sending an empty cardboard box flying against a shelf. A few cans toppled and rolled along the aisle. “Can’t never just be quiet. Not here five minutes and look.”
A can bumped against his shoe as he limped down the aisle. He’d known Marty for only a few hours, and already Ben had solidified himself as the Guy Who Let His Little Brother Get Took. And that’s who he would always be now, someone who demanded unwanted soft words and undeserved pity.
And what if Marty told Bill Palmer? Ben could feel his palms dampen at the thought, and he shook his head as if that would be enough to get rid of it. He’d tell Palmer—or he’d tell someone who would tell Palmer—and that’d be it. First and last paycheck on a single piece of paper. Ben couldn’t help but chuckle as he rubbed his handkerchief on the back of his neck. He was pacing now. Was he looking for Marty? He wasn’t sure. Ben wasn’t sure he knew what he was looking for in any sense.