shifted the box of sandwiches in his hands so that they rested on his hip.
“You should steer clear of her. She’s mental. She needs to see a psychiatrist.”
“There’s nothing mental about her. She’s just a whore. You don’t think women can be as nasty about sex as half of the men you know?”
Suddenly, Shoes leans into the sunglasses rack and knocks down a couple pair. They bounce across the generic beige tiles. Jimmy spins toward the corner with such a startle that he doubles in pain and drops his sandwiches on the floor. “Shit, John! What the hell! You could’a told me that someone was back there.”
“It’s just old Shoes is all. He’s campin’ for a while.”
Shoes leans out from behind the rack and waves.
“Damn, Shoes! Why you hiding back there like a friggin ninja?”
John answers. “He aint a ninja. He’s a ghost. He haunts the Amoco. Looter kicked him out. Said I can’t let him come around no more. Now he’s camouflaged.”
“Camera’s still going to pick him up. Poor fella can’t make like a statue all night.”
“Made a blind spot in that corner.”
“Then what’s the sunglasses doing over there?”
“Just cover from nosey Nellies that might mention things to Looter.”
Jimmy nods with approval. “Well, good for you boys.”
John comes around the corner and helps Jimmy gather up the sandwiches. Jimmy winces and braces one hand against his ribs while he holds up his new creation with the other. “You gotta try one of these when it goes out of date. Three kinds of cheese.” He packs it neatly back into the box along with the rest of the sandwiches, faster with one hand than John is with two, precision and dexterity that only twenty years in the business can bring. John’s still holding the first and only sandwich he picked up.
“Getting kind’a fancy, aren’t ya, Jimmy?”
“Chargin’ more too. Three and a half bucks for that one.”
“Here that, Shoes? Next pile of out-a-dates, we might be eatin’ fancy food. Three kinds of cheeses.”
Shoes is busy pulling at his hair and brushing off imaginary specters.
“That boy don’t look so good some times,” Jimmy says, as he watches Shoes argue with an invisible foe.
“Everybody’s got ghosts.” John sets the last sandwich into the box crooked and Jimmy reflexively straightens it out.
“Not like he does.” Jimmy stands up and heads back to the cooler near the microwave where he always keeps his display and loads the case. John follows. “He’s the one that should actually see a head doctor. Not that whore.”
“Crazy folks are crazy. That’s why they don’t know they have a problem.”
“Damn shame.” Jimmy closes the cooler case and hands John the box of out-of-dates. He points to the box. “There’s a burrito in there too, just in case you get the Mexican urge.”
“I’ll save that for Looter. He says that when he eats Mexican he spends the remainder of the day on the toilet.”
“You and Looter.” Jimmy shakes his head as he walks out the door.
John grabs a couple sandwiches from the box of out-of-dates, a chuck wagon and a double cheeseburger, and pops them into the microwave. He punches the button with a picture of a sandwich on it and then presses the number 2. The window illuminates and John watches the food slowly rotate on the tiny carousel. A small spill of nacho cheese in the back of the oven bubbles. John pulls them out and balances them on his sleeves, tumbling them back and forth as he walks so that they won’t burn him. He gets to Shoes’ makeshift bunker and finds him asleep. He slides the chuck wagon into Shoes’ pocket and walks back to the register where he eats his own, finishing by wiping his mouth with his tie, adding a fresh stroke of yellow cheddar to the work in progress. He lets Shoes sleep. A few customers come in for morning papers, doughnuts and coffee but they never notice the slumbering shell of a man slumped up against the milk cooler. When there’s only half an hour before Looter will show up, John claps Shoes on the back and pushes a steaming cup of coffee in his hand before sending him back to the world. He puts the sunglasses rack back in its original home next to the slushee machine and sprays Shoes’ corner down with Febreze that he’d borrowed from the housewares aisle.
Shortly after, Looter shows up and squeezes out of his tiny tan Corolla. He waddles up to the store angrily, the beginning of his regular morning ritual. His thick moustache is grown out handlebar-style. Looter thinks it gives him a timeless look. John thinks it makes him look like a bloated, pale catfish that he once saw drying out on a dock, flies going in and out of its mouth like tourists through a hotel lobby. Just the struggle to get from his car to the store has him panting and his glasses are fogged over making him look like he has enormous eyes with no pupils.
Looter kicks the door open violently as he mutters a string of profanities perverse enough to sour milk. He pulls the glasses from his face and cleans them with the bottom of his shirt. The act exposes his belly draped over his pants like over-proofed bread dough hanging from a mixing bowl, precariously ready to drip to the floor. Once he replaces his glasses, he scans his domain for anything out of place. Satisfied, he heads for the register, punches a couple of the keys and the total sales for the shift are printed on a receipt. His lips move slowly as he reads the figure silently. Then he crumbles it beneath a chubby club of a fist and spikes it into the waste basket.
“Forty eight dollars? That’s it?”
John shrugs.
“I swear you must be lockin’ the doors at night and turnin’ out the sign.” He sniffs the air. “Stinks in here.” He looks at John suspiciously, wondering about Shoes.
“The nacho cheese is getting old.”
“Did you push it this morning?”
“People don’t want nachos for breakfast. They want doughnuts.”
“But you didn’t even make the effort, did ya?” Looter shakes his head in disgust.
“Didn’t really see the point.”
“Of course you didn’t.” Looter kicks the defenseless waste basket over. It pours out its entrails, sending crumpled wads of paper, coffee filters, a torn nudie magazine, soda cans, and candy wrappers, across the floor. “Pick that up, Stacey.”
John sweeps the eclectic debris back into the can with his foot, tips it up and slips it back into place.
“Did you get my sandwiches last night?”
“Yeah. They’re over in the back of the milk cooler.”
“You didn’t steal any of them, did you?”
“There’s a burrito in there too.”
“You made sure of that, didn’t you? You know I have a sensitive digestive system.”
“I’ll toss that one out.’
“Never mind! Don’t even bother. I’ll take it.” He rubs his stomach. “I guess I’ll have it for lunch. It’ll be your fault if I have to call you back in during my shift because I’m stuck on the shitter.”
John nods.
“Thinkin’ about askin’ that blonde that works the night shift over there at President’s out on a date. She’s been givin’ me the eye lately.” He hikes up his pants and smirks. “You know anything about her?”
“Not much. Heard she’s real nice.”
“You bet she is.”
John nods.
He looks around the store. “Everything get done last night?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you better punch out. There’s no way I’m putting my okay on any overtime.”
“Right,” John says as he punches his card.
Looter freezes, looking down at the rim of his stool where he spots a mud print. “What’s that?”
“What?” John asks sheepishly, discreetly looking toward Shoes’ corner, hoping he hasn’t forgotten anything.
“Did you sit on my stool last night?”
“Don’t think so. May have by accident.”
“There’s no such thing as accidently sitting on a stool! You either parked your lazy ass or you didn’t!” He ki
cks the waste basket over spilling refuse again. “Pick that up!” John cleans up the mess and sets the basket back in place. “And mop the floor again before you leave! This place looks like shit!”
“I’m already punched out.”
“You owe me. I keep your lazy ass in a job.”
John sighs before he leaves and returns with the mop and bucket.
“You’re not using that dirty water that you used once already. Change it.”
John does as he’s told and half an hour later he goes home.
The next night Shoes never comes in but that’s not completely unusual because Shoes doesn’t come by every single night. Still, John can’t help but worry about him. The guy has survived this long out there. He can take care of himself, John reasons.
Another night passes and Shoes does not come by. Weeks follow and Shoes still doesn’t visit. John starts worrying about him constantly. During the day, he drives his rust-eaten Lincoln to all the areas of town where the forsaken bed down for shelter. He asks other homeless people whether they’ve seen Shoes but no one that is capable of giving a lucid answer indicates they’ve seen him.
At night John begins to dream of Shoes. Sometimes he dreams that Shoes suddenly just shows up at the Amoco and it’s such a relief to see him. When he tells Shoes that he was worried about him, Shoes gives him one of his patented looks and both of them laugh. But it’s only a dream and the curtain pulls back every morning, revealing the ugly reality that he still hasn’t shown up. John’s sleep is haunted with images of Vic and his angry bat or rabid teens armed with pipes and steel-toed boots converging on a helpless sleeping man, tearing open his