Scott just smiled as he had grown weary of the banter. He hadn’t slept in what felt like a week. His entire body ached, his head pounded, and he most certainly didn’t have anything resembling the patience to deal with this asshole.
“I should come over there and make you pick that up.”
“Oops,” Scott said as another stack of boxes fell from a shift of his hips, crashing into another stack which fell as well.
“I watched you do that!” he shouted, his eyes growing as wild as his hair.
“You could have averted this by just opening the case for me when I had asked.”
“So you’re admitting that you did that on purpose.”
“If that’ll get you through the day…”
The electronics troll popped out of the aisle, holding in his gut so he could squeeze past the piles of boxes. His meaty ham- fists clenched at his sides, he walked right up to Scott and grabbed two handfuls of his shirt.
“What’s going on over there?” a suddenly panicked man wearing one of the navy blue vests beneath his down winter jacket gasped from where he stood at the entrance to the electronics section.
The chunky worker immediately released Scott’s shirt and took a rapid step backwards, his mouth falling slack.
The man set the briefcase he had been carrying, along with the brown paper bag full of what could presumably only been his lunch onto the counter by the register and proceeded to walk straight towards them, his face growing increasingly redder with each step. Passing Scott, he stopped right in front of the suddenly cowed wild haired worker, his teeth clenching as his jaw ground from side to side.
“Go wait for me in my office,” he growled, his eyes narrowing to mere slits.
He stood with his back to Scott watching as the electronics guy weaved between the stacks of boxes and out into the aisle, heading towards the back of the store. Scott could hear the man sigh as he paused just momentarily before turning back to Scott.
“Please accept my apologies, sir. My nephew has a tendency to be a little antisocial. Hence, we try to keep him here in the middle of the night as much as possible to keep him away from the customers.”
“Your nephew?”
“When your sister calls and says her son needs a job so that he can help her pay the bills now that her husband of twenty- five years has decided to flat out split on them, what are you supposed to do?”
With a reassuring smile, Scott nodded. “I completely understand.”
The man paused, inspecting Scott. His dark mustache twitched as his narrow brown eyes scanned every inch of him. The long line of fluorescent tubes mounted high above in the ceiling reflected off the shiny skin atop his head under his thin comb- over.
“Now,” he said, still wearing the same uncomfortable expression. “Is there something that I can do for you.”
“I need something out of one of these cases over here in sporting goods.”
“All right,” the man said through a feigned smile, pulling a mass of keys from his hip where they had been clipped to his belt. “If you will please follow me then.”
The two walked through the maze of boxes and out into the main aisle while the man tossed through the pile of keys one by one, finally pinching one of the smaller silver ones between his thumb and index finger.
Rounding the corner, they passed the limited costume jewelry section and beneath an archway formed from hip waders. There was a counter straight ahead, a small register bolted in the front left corner. Behind the counter was a large glass case filled with a vertical row of shotguns and rifles. Beside the case on the shelves that ran the length of the wall were boxes upon boxes of ammunition, stocked from the floor clear up the nine- foot wall.
“This case?” the man asked somewhat hesitantly as he nodded towards the wall of guns.
“Yes, sir,” Scott said politely. “I need that Remington twelve gauge and the Winchester right below it.”
“Doing some hunting?”
“Something like that.”
“What are you going for?”
“Deer,” Scott muttered, having not expected to have to justify the purchase.
“With shotguns?”
“They’re for the geese, it’s a combination hunt.”
“Oh,” the man mused as he opened the small circular lock on the bottom of the case and slid back the large pane of glass.
He pulled the Remington down first, lifting it off of the plastic hooks that held it in place. Setting it on the counter, he pulled down the Winchester, laying it next to the other. Closing the glass door, he replaced the metal lock and reached beneath the counter. Producing a large book of forms in triplicate, he opened it to the next available form and turned it, handing it to Scott so that it would be right side up.
“I just need you to fill this out for me really quickly if you please,” he said with a curt smile, handing Scott a pen from atop the register.
“Thanks,” Scott said as he brought the pen to the page and began to fill it out as quickly as he could. He wrote down his name and address, his social security number and his driver’s license number. He filled in every bit of information from his date of birth through his mother’s maiden name. They wanted every bit of information about his life that he was able to provide, which he filled in just as quickly as he could. Affixing his signature to the bottom line, he handed it back to the man whom, of course, needed to verify all of the information with every piece of plastic that Scott had in his wallet.
After several minutes of comparing the driver’s license to the page, he handed it back to Scott, coyly comparing the face on the plastic to his current stubbled visage.
“Is there anything else we can get you?’ he asked, tearing the top form off and setting it to the side of the register.
“I need about six boxes of twelve gauge shells.”
The man, who had unzipped his coat so that his managerial badge was now visible, stepped to the side and grabbed one of the boxes.
“Any preference as to brand?”
“Nope, just grab whatever.”
The manager pulled down one box at a time, stacking them in two sets of three on the fake white marble countertop next to the shotguns.
“Can I get you some licenses to go with that?” he asked with a smile.
“No thanks,” Scott said, pulling his gold card from his wallet.
The man stared at him somewhat dumbfounded for a moment.
Intercepting the look, Scott elaborated.
“We’ve already got the licenses, I just figured it was about time to replace that old gun of mine before we left for the mountains, but I couldn’t decide which one to go with so I figured I’d just buy them both and see which one I was more comfortable with in the field.”
“Will that give you enough time to have the stock modified to fit your reach?”
“I’m lucky,” Scott said wishing for nothing more for the man to just end the conversation and hand him his damned shotguns. “My reach is the same as the standard factory stock. It makes it easy.”
Shaking his head, as he really had no idea what he was talking about, he forced the credit card into the man’s face as he began to ring the transaction into the register. After a moment of hammering keys and scanning bar codes, he turned back to Scott with a far more sincere grin.
“That’ll be nine hundred eighty dollars and thirty-two cents.”
He pulled the electronically generated receipt from the printer in the register and handed it to Scott. As he signed, the man placed the heavy boxes of shells into a plastic bag, slipping it into two other before finally taking the signed receipt from Scott and stapling his copy to the bag.
Tucking the shotguns beneath his left arm, Scott grabbed the bag and with a polite nod headed towards the front of the store. Every one of the worthless employees who stood by the main aisle pretending to
