Chapter 11 (continued)

He finished the box of toilet paper, flattened the box, and moved on to the next one. Ten minutes later he'd finished with the cart and headed back to the stock room for another load.

The night was going quickly for Sedgewick, and before he knew it Jimmie and Alex had declared it break time. The all collapsed in the break room, the evening October air too crisp for an outdoor break. Missy sauntered in a few minutes late and sat in Alex's lap, a bit of excessive workplace flirting they probably did more to annoy Jimmie and Sedgewick. Jimmie cracked a joke or two, but quickly ignored it. Sedgewick tried to as well. In his experience affection had always been something private and personal, something magical that stretched time and made you see in the world in a different light. It was something to toss around in front of others like an old rag.

After break they headed back to work. The truck had been completely unloaded and Jimmie and Alex were hitting the floor to help Sedgewick and Missy stock all the new groceries. Missy and Alex were still flirting and headed to aisle two by themselves, the usually slow and time consuming aisle of canned fruits and vegetables.

Jimmie shook his head, but let them go. At this rate he didn't think he could stomach working with them all night anyway.

"C'mon, we'll tackle aisle six." He grabbed a truck and Sedgewick followed him out to the floor. By now it was after 8 and the grocery store crowd began to thin out. The supper rush was gone and families were no longer coming in for their massive full-cart trips. The late night runs of single men and well-prepared moms who knew when the grocery store was busy and when it wasn't were beginning.

Aisle six was the cereal aisle, the aisle where Sedgewick had found Connor the Friday before. Cereal lined an entire length of the aisle, except for the last ten or fifteen feet where the cheap plastic toys were displayed. On the opposite side were condiments of every type and variety, from ten feet of pickles to mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, horseradish, and the several varieties of atomic hot sauce. Granola bars and cereal bars held a small section of the aisle near the end, towards the front of the store.

Jimmie didn't need conversation to work. He was just as content to stock shelves in silence as he was to banter about bands or managers or whatever was on his mind. Mocking the products they stocked was always a favorite pastime.

"You know what I can't stand? Cereal mascots." Jimmie dropped a case of fruit loops and sliced the top open.

Sedgewick nodded, thinking of the few commercials he'd seen, and glancing up the aisle at the cartoon mascots who covered every other breakfast cereal box.

"What's even worse are the wussy mascots, the ones who can't seem to hang on to a single bowl of cereal. Some kid always nabs it at the last minute. What kind of mascot doesn't get to eat the cereal?"

Sedgewick laughed, thinking of the hapless rabbit.

"I can never understand the attraction. What does a rabbit have to do with fruity cereal?"

Jimmie laughed at this, and pointed out that at least a toucan is tropical and there's a mild fruity connection.

"They're fruity, I tell you." Jimmie said. The conversation faded as they both stocked several more cases. Later in the night they returned to foolish mascots when Sedgewick pulled down a case of bran cereal.

"Hey, check it out: it's Bran Man." He held up the case to show Jimmie a cartoon bran flake flexing its muscles.

"Muscles? I don't think that's what bran does for you."

"And aren't cereal mascots really to entice the kids? What kind of kid is going to be drawn to Bran Man?"

"I’m telling you," Jimmie said, "They're fruity."

The conversation paused again and Sedgewick knelt to slice and price another case of cereal. He looked up to see a familiar pair of green eyes, the fourth college student from the Friday before. He smiled and returned to the case, using his pricing gun to shoot labels in quick rows up and down the case. He stowed the gun in his back pocket, picked up the case and stood to put the boxes on the shelf as Allison walked up to him.

"Can I help you, miss?"

"Hi." Allison hadn't quite laughed, but the smile was worth it.

"How are you? Was everything okay at home?" Sedgewick managed to give her his full attention while still slapping boxes of oat cereal on the shelf. He was always annoyed when other employees stopped to chat, as if stocking shelves required your undivided attention.

"Yeah, I survived. It wasn't easy, but I didn't expect it to be."

Sedgewick nodded and turned to grab another case. He picked one in roughly the same spot so he wouldn't have to walk up and down the aisle and make Allison follow him. Jimmie grabbed another case and gave Sedgewick a look.

"Oh, sorry. Jimmie, this is Allison. Allison, Jimmie." Allison nodded politely and Jimmie returned the nod and gave Sedgewick a sly grin.

"So are you two… am I going to need to work a different aisle?"

"Shut up, we're…" he gave Allison a look and she returned it, but didn't say anything. "…friends."

"Friends, huh?" Jimmie hitched up his pants, grabbed a case of pickles, and headed for the far end of the aisle.

"You should see our coworkers in aisle two," Sedgewick said when he saw the curious look on Allison's face. She smiled and let her eyes fall to the floor.

"So this is the dedicated job of a stock boy, huh?"

"Yeah, pretty glamorous, I know."

"I had to see for myself." Sedgewick smiled and set the last box on the shelf, breaking down the case and adding the cardboard to the pile.

"Actually, home was kind of rough, and I wanted to see you." The quiet tenderness in her voice cut to Sedgewick's heart.

"I get off in half an hour, if you don't mind waiting. I suppose it's kind of boring watching me stock groceries."

"Oh no, it's fascinating."

"You should have been here earlier. We discovered Bran Man." Sedgewick pointed to a bran cereal and the well-built flake. Allison managed a small a laugh.

"You could wait for me at Perkins if you like."

"Maybe I'll do that. I've got a book or two to read for class. Not that I've been going, but I should probably try not to fall too far behind." Sedgewick nodded and agreed to come find Allison at Perkins when he finished.

"I'll see you then."

"See you." She took a step back, slowly, then smiled and gave a quick wave and turned to go. Sedgewick just smiled and watched her go. He finished his case and turned to see Jimmie standing at the empty cart, waiting for him.

"So she's a friend, huh?" Jimmie gave his sly smile. "C'mon, let's grab another cart."

"I actually just met her yesterday."

"Yesterday?"

"Yeah, it's kind of a long, strange story." Jimmie pressed as they headed to the back room and Sedgewick reluctantly filled in the details, leaving out as many as possible.

"Then her—her mom died."

"Oh," Jimmie said, his eyes widening. "Oh, man."

"Yeah." Jimmie didn't know much, if any, of Sedgewick's past, and Sedgewick let it stay that way.

"That's heavy." Sedgewick nodded and they hauled another cart out to aisle six. Him and Jimmie continued working in silence, neither sure of what to say. Romantic thoughts and flirting jokes were nothing in the face of death. But as Sedgewick hauled boxes back and forth and lined up bottles of ketchup and packages of cereal, he knew that death didn't have the final word.

He thought about Allison sitting alone in Perkins, and he wanted to do something for her. Quietly and desperately he wanted to do something for her. But he didn't know what. He didn't know what would be appropriate, didn't know what would be thoughtful, didn't know what would capture anything he was feeling at all.

10:00 rolled around and the stocking ended for the night. Sedgewick offered to take the cardboard pile to the back, and Jimmie headed up front to punch out and go home. Alex and Missy had already called it quits and back room was quiet and still. The overnight crew hadn't come in yet. Sedgewick flung a load of cardboard into the bailer and was about to pull the gate down and let the aging hydraulics crush the cardboard when he saw a muscled flake staring back at him. He pulled out the flattened case that held 12 boxes of bran flakes and smiled at the little Bran Man emblazoned on the side. He thought of Allison and her smile, and inspiration struck.

He reached for his safety cutter and sliced the side of the box free, leaving him with a one foot by two foot piece of cardboard with a flexing bran flake smiling from one side.

Sedgewick sat down on a truck, placed the cardboard on his knees and pulled a thick black marker from his pocket. Sometimes they used the markers to make notes, indicating what back stock had been run when, or writing a list of what ice cream needed to be restocked. The felt-tipped marker always died in the cold of the freezer, but the bold and blunt strokes worked great on the handy writing material of choice, cardboard, and could be read at a distance.

On the back side of the cardboard Sedgewick started sketching. He used fast, firm strokes, and the blank side of cardboard quickly grew black. He filled in the outer edge roughly and then concentrated on the center. With black as his only color, he used the negative space, the color of the cardboard, as best he could.

He finished in a few minutes, and stopped to survey his work. He added another line and a scribble here and there to the outer edge. He smiled. It was rough. It was odd looking. But it closely approximated the image he had in his mind, and he thought it just might make Allison smile.

He flipped the cardboard card over and penned a few words, careful to make sure the ink on the other side wasn't wiping off on his pants. He wrote a few lines beneath the Bran Man and then paused to sign his name. He wasn't sure what to put before his name. He had told Jimmie they were friends, and Allison hadn't objected. But she hadn't protested for more, either. Sedgewick considered it for a moment more, and then wrote a single 'v,' and signed his name below.

He unbuttoned his vest and headed to the front desk to punch out for the night. Jimmie was gone and the few cashiers were under worked and bored. The store would close in another hour. Sedgewick paused at the front desk after punching out, looking across the registers to the produce department and the little floral section. He hesitated, toying with the idea for a moment. He looked at his rough-hewn cardboard card and felt a bit pathetic.

He wondered across the lanes to the floral section and glanced at the teddy bears beaming out of perfectly arranged flowers. A little plastic stick poked up from one arrangement, wishing the recipient well. A wall of refrigerated cases held more arrangements and buckets of single flowers. Sedgewick walked up to these and looked at the roses, the carnations, and the other flowers. None of them looked right or appropriate or even appealing to Sedgewick at all. The plastic looking flowers just didn't say what needed to be said.

Sedgewick shook his head and walked out the door. One of the remaining cashiers stood at her post, no customers in sight, and watched him go with an odd piece of cardboard under one arm.