Bread, milk, cereal. Bread, milk, cereal. I recite the three things my mom asked me to get at the market on the corner over and over again. You’d think they’d be easy to remember, but lists like hers tend to fly out of my head when I’d rather be where I was five minutes ago: camped out on the living room couch playing video games and eating Cheetos. I groaned when she handed me a twenty dollar bill and told me not to come back with candy or more salty crap as she called it. She smiled and winked and I felt like a jerk for groaning in the first place. She’s a night nurse and picks up shifts anytime one becomes available. She’s always tired and she’s thinner than she should be, but always manages to make sure I’m fed and have clean clothes. For those reasons and too many more to list, if she asks me to do something I do it. Period. This trip to the corner market is no different.
Stuffing one hand in my pocket, I reach for a piece of gum. As I bring it out, the twenty falls on the floor. I sigh and wish my mother had sent my sister, Kiera, instead of me. I kneel and scoop it up, standing just as the elevator doors open.
“Daniel! Hello, dear!” A stubby body waddles toward me. Mrs. Alder, wearing orange lipstick that’s smeared on her two front teeth, smiles at me. “So nice to see you.” I hold the door for her, and hold my breath, as she squeezes past me into the tiny metal rectangle that passes for an elevator in our apartment building.
“Hey Mrs. A,” I mumble, glancing at her before I concentrate on my shoes.
Advancing a single step, Mrs. Alder’s foul breath mingles with her flowery perfume. Both make me feel a little sick so I slide back a few steps until I feel my back touch the far wall of the elevator. “Can you press number five, dear?” For a minute, I don’t know whether to be overjoyed that she’s not riding to the lobby with me or disappointed that I have to go up two floors with her. It’s a push I suppose considering we are on the third floor. I nod and oblige by depressing the number five. “I’m going upstairs to see Grace. You know Grace, right? Grace Kellerman?” She doesn’t wait for me to say a word or nod, but continues. “Her husband died, four, no maybe, five years ago. Or was it six? Let me think.” She brings a liver-spotted finger to her lips and taps it there. Her cloudy blue eyes light up after a long moment and her finger moves away from her mouth with an orange blotch on its tip; then she claps her hands together. “Seven! Marty died seven years ago.” She smiles proudly, and I can’t help but feel one side of my mouth lift as well.
When the elevator reaches the fifth floor and the door begrudgingly opens, Mrs. Alder shuffles out, leaving behind the vague stench of her perfume and her breath in her wake. Sighing and shaking my head, I close my eyes briefly once the door closes. I open them and resume my chant in my head bread, milk, cereal until the elevator stops and I step out. The vague smell of cigarette smoke and about fifteen different foods cooking mixes with the stuffy mildew smell unique to apartment buildings. All greet me immediately. All are familiar. All are what I’ve come to recognize as the scent of home. It may not be the substance of home and garden magazines but it’s fine by me. Home doesn’t have to be filled with frou-frou junk and look like a museum. It has to be filled with the people you love and who love you.
I smile to myself and think of my mom in her light blue scrubs plugging in a scented oil diffuser and saying, “Okay. That’s all the Martha Stewart I have in me,” before I force myself to remember the list again. Bread, milk, cereal, and M&Ms maybe?
My mind wanders around speculation about my favorite zombie show on television and my favorite video game as I walk along the crowded city street. The area is commercial. Cars and trucks continually drive by, an interesting blend of music thumping and horns blaring accompany the whoosh of air as they pass.
I’m lost in thought and the sensory overload of my busy street when I find myself rounding the corner and almost passing Joe’s Convenience Mart. My feet stutter to a stop and I yank open the door. A bell tinkles and Mr. Soon’s head snaps in my direction from behind the counter. “Oh, Daniel, how are you today?” Mr. Soon asks in his thick Korean accent.
Smiling, I bob one shoulder and say “Fine. How’s everything going?”
“Oh I’m good, Daniel, always good.” Slim and probably not more than five feet tall, I can’t remember ever seeing Mr. Soon angry or sad, he’s perpetually happy. I suppose that’s why I’ve never heard anyone question why he kept the market “Joe’s” when that’s not his name. Mun-Hee is what I’ve heard him called. Regardless of the name, he’s a nice guy who flashes a toothy grin as I make my way down a narrow aisle to the back of the store where the refrigerated cases are. Scanning the selection of milk, I reach for one with a pink cap and rack my brain to remember whether my mom wanted two-percent or one-percent. I should’ve asked. I pat my pockets and realize I forgot my phone when I hear the bell above the door jingle loudly, louder than usual. I turn and see a man enter. Tall and broad-shouldered and with dark stubble covering his chin, half of his cheeks and his upper lip, he’s about as intimidating a man as I’ve ever seen. Looking away to avoid eye contact at any cost, I gulp hard and accidentally swallow my gum. I spin and grab the first gallon of milk my hand touches. As the door closes, I catch my reflection in the stainless steel frame of the glass. A stark contrast to the man who just walked in, I’m still built exactly as I was in eighth grade. Medium height, medium build, I haven’t filled out yet as most of the boys in my grade have. And let’s face it, a boy going into tenth grade who’s built like me might as well be invisible.
Filling my lungs, I exhale loudly, envisioning myself taking Mrs. Alder to my senior prom. But my breathing snags, catching mid breath when a loud voice fills the market, leaving in its wake a shrill ring in my ears that burrows to the center of my brain. “Give me all your money!” the man booms. Heart battering my ribs like a sledgehammer, I twist and look in the direction of the voice.
Every cell in my body shrieks at once, ordering me to run, to try to find an exit and get as far away from the shouting as possible, but inexplicably, my legs follow the trajectory of my eyes, moving as if of their own volition toward the front of the store.
Above boxes of tampons and tubes of athlete’s foot cream, I see the top of a head. Thick hair, sooty and blacker than the darkest night sky, looms, speeding the rhythm of my pulse dangerously. Still, my legs continue to carry me forward, toward what every instinct within me warns me to get away from.
And then I get a clear view of him.
Towering at what must be six foot four inches, every inch of him looking as if it’s carved from granite, the man who entered seconds ago would be threatening without a weapon. The shotgun he brandishes and points directly at Mr. Soon adds an even deadlier layer to the terror he exudes.
“I said empty the damn register!” the man shouts, spittle spraying from his mouth. And with his words, a volt of energy as potent as a bolt of lightning rockets through my body. I jerk, my right arm suddenly completely numb, and the milk I hold in my hand slips, falling to the ground with infinitesimal slowness. All sound, including the buzzing in my ears, is silenced. I watch it with stunned wonder as it descends, falling to the tiled floor in slow motion before it crashes; hard plastic shattering to sharp shards and jutting from a puddle of pure white.
Then sound returns, and my world erupts into complete chaos.
The man’s head snaps in my direction. Eyes as dark as volcanic glass bore into my skull before he aims his weapon squarely at my chest.
Pounding a frantic tempo, my heart surges to my throat and lodges there. Raising my hands to chest height, palms facing out, my voice shakes. “Please don’t shoot. I won’t cause any trouble.”
Bushy brows knit, the man’s expression represents that he’s making a choice. He’s deciding whether or not to kill me.
Tears sting my eyes, my world suddenly surreal, a nightmare from which I cannot wake.
In my periphery, I see Mr. Soon’s upper b
ody dip. He reaches for something beneath the counter.
Blood pounding so hard against the surface of my skin, I will the man with the shotgun to keep his eyes on me. But he doesn’t. He sees Mr. Soon. Turning quickly, his weapon is trained on Mr. Soon the second he lifts the handgun he’d reached for.
An earsplitting blast roars through the ether. A gaping hole appears at the center of Mr. Soon’s chest and his small body lurches backward into a display of air fresheners. Colorful plastic explodes, raining from the ceiling like fragrant confetti. Shelves collapse as the market owner’s body falls to the floor. Glass shatters. Papers fly. The once-meticulous space is reduced to a jumble of disarray. And Mr. Soon, the kind Korean man who always had a pleasant smile and a never-ending supply of Cheetos, is slumped against the wall, a craterous wound in his torso and a vacant stare glazing his eyes.
My face contorts and sobs rack my body. I don’t dare cover my face with my hands or wipe my nose. I keep both where they can be seen. Especially after seeing what happened to Mr. Soon.
Turning slowly, the man with the shotgun cocks his head to one side and regards me with a crooked, almost sad smile.
“Please, p-please. I won’t say anything,” I beg as fluid from my eyes and nose stream down my chin, but in my heart of hearts, I know my words are wasted. I’ve seen too much.
Still looking at me with the deadened amusement of a psychopath, the man purses his lips briefly then licks his front teeth.
“Sorry kid” are the last two words I hear before a deafening boom erupts like a clap of thunder, rattling the ground beneath my feet. Light flashes briefly, and then pain unlike any I’ve ever experienced explodes in my chest sending trembling veins of agony snaking through my body. My eyes rove about the market a final time before darkness reaches out to me, beckoning me, seducing me with the promise of an end to the suffering, the promise of release. And I fall to it.
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