Night Shift
Brian Gibson | Fall 2023
It was now two in the morning, and the few remaining customers stalked the sales floor of the convenience store, utterly lost to their own thoughts. Tara had first observed this effect in her second week working the convenience store night shift. Something about the blank linoleum glow of the store and the washed-out neon packaging arranged in rows lulled them into a sleepwalking stupor. Outside, the occasional passing headlight scanned its way across the windows. Tara, too, was beginning to feel the first signs of exhaustion setting in. She was unused to working such long hours, but it was necessary after the sudden departure of Tim. Two weeks ago, he had simply stopped turning up to any of his shifts. She had seen Tim at church with his family last Sunday but he had skillfully evaded all of Tara’s attempts to approach him, out of embarrassment, most likely. And he ought to have been embarrassed. It gave her some comfort to know that he would feel shame for leaving the rest of the already overworked employees with all of his work without so much as an explanation.
Tara pulled out a scrap of receipt paper from beneath the register, covered nearly from end to end in different handwriting. This was the store communication system. Shifts never overlapped and employees were always more than eager to go home as soon as contractually permissible, which meant that none of the employees knew one another beyond exchanging hellos and goodbyes. Except for the receipt paper. Most of it was filled with boring humdrum, orders to restock the dairy cases, notes of which customers had gotten themselves banned today, but there were also more salacious details. Two of the tweaker regulars were hooking up now, much to the chagrin of the third, who lamented at length his long spell of sexlessness. A man had ordered every hotdog from the case and proceeded to eat them all right in front of the counter. There were also several indecipherable entries, presumably from Tim, who was known to have had a doctor’s handwriting on minimum wage.
Slowly, the customers filtered out as closing time inched closer. By 2:45, the lot was empty and the store descended into a deep tranquility, as if nothing living had ever set foot inside. Tara left the register and began locking the doors and making the rounds. However, when she reached the laundry aisle, she realized that she had made a mistake. There was still a customer in the store, a woman with matted hair and an elaborate matrix of tattoos along her arms and neck.
“Oh! I’m so sorry, ma’am,” said Tara. “I had no idea there was anyone still in here.”
The woman stood unresponsive for a moment and Tara wondered if she had overdosed on something. “I need the strongest detergent you have,” the woman finally said. “Which one is the strongest?”
“I have no idea. They should all be fairly similar. There should also be detergents specifically for stain removal, if that’s what you need.”
“I need the strongest,” the woman repeated. “Which is the strongest?”
Tara pulled a bottle of detergent from the shelf at random. “Oh, then you definitely need this one. My family swears by it.”
“No, no Tide,” the woman said. “It is not good enough.”
Tara was beginning to feel like laughing in this woman’s face. “As I said, I have no idea which one is the strongest,” she said coldly. “For God’s sakes, just pick one. They’re all good.”
“You are a student, yes?” the woman asked.
“I am. Why do you ask?”
“Because I am curious. Why do you work?”
“The same reason anyone else does, I suppose,” Tara said, only slightly thrown by the non sequitur. Although, she was steadily growing wary of this woman, this customer who was now interrogating her on her life story in a half-dark convenience store with every exit locked.
“Nobody works for the same reasons,” said the woman. “Why do you work?”
She worked because she needed the money. Not in the same way as the truly poor in her town, but because she needed it to keep up with Jenny and Rose. Jenny was one of the few at Tara’s high school who had a car and every week, she would drive Rose and Tara from school into the national reserve forest encircling the town to get high. There was a service road leading to a vista that Jenny believed she had discovered, although Tara—along with every other graduate of Milton P. Dermott High School—had known about it for years. Nevertheless, Jenny and Rose made it into something new, somehow imbuing the view with a crackling mystery that it had not previously held for her. When the three of them were there, it seemed they were not looking out over the town, but over a pit full of strangers she would never meet. This perception may have arisen from the fact that they were always high on something or other by the time they arrived at the vista, hence her need for money. As a bonus, Tara’s employment at the store gave her and her friends functionally unlimited access to alcohol.
“So that I can do what I want to do,” Tara responded.
“Do you work for your freedom, then?”
“I guess. Are you ready to check out? Please, it’s late and I’d like to go home.”
The woman laughed, a mellifluous sound like glasses clinking. She had finally selected six bottles of All, which she heaved onto the counter with a great thud. As Tara bagged the detergent, she no longer wondered about this woman. She was probably crazy, yes, but benignly so; rather, she seemed unusually lucid and polite for the night crowd. Tara walked the woman to the door and began unlocking it for her.
“What is your name?” asked the woman.
“Oh, right. It’s Bonnie.” Tara always used a fake name on the job. One of the older women had advised her on it a few months ago and she immediately found it oddly comforting, a minor act of rebellion that did wonders to soothe her nerves. Besides, all the myths she had read so eagerly as a child agreed on the fact that names held unknown power.
“Thank you, Bonnie. I will let you know whether this detergent works.”
Tim showed up on Tara’s next shift, uniform in hand to leave in the back of the store.
Strangely, Tara found that when faced with him, she could no longer summon the righteous anger that had previously been so eager to spill over. All she could say to him was, “I tried to talk to you last Sunday.”
“I know,” said Tim. “I was just under the weather then and I figured you wanted to tell me off. But I’m feeling much better now, so give me everything you’ve got.”
“What’s done is done. In fact, I don’t blame you at all. If I were smart, I would’ve quit a while ago. But,” she paused, “out of curiosity, why did you finally decide to quit?”
Tim sighed. “My mother isn’t—she isn’t well. Someone has to be there to take care of her, otherwise she wanders off.” His smile was bitter and aged. Tara suddenly felt an urgent desire to leave. She had gotten more than she bargained for, and then what could you say after that?
“That’s…” she trailed off. “I’m glad she has someone to take care of her.” She did not dare say any more, not how difficult it must be or how strong a person has to be to shoulder such a burden because there was no graceful route to be taken, and maybe he needed to talk but Tara could not be the one he talked to.
“We’re all doing the best we can,” he said, and Tara grimaced because that must have meant he had intuited her discomfort with this entire situation. “Anyway, it was good to see you. Oh, I’m also glad you got someone to replace me.”
“What do you mean?” asked Tara. “Who would that be?”
“The new hire? I can’t remember her name. But you haven’t met?
“I had no idea,” said Tara. “I guess we haven’t.”
“I suppose it took me about three months of working here to even find a chance to say a word to you. I’m sure you’ll run into each other eventually.”
“If you see her before I do, kindly tell her to pick up a few more goddamn hours, okay?”
After Tim left, Tara opened a package of Oreos, twisting them cleanly apart and popping them into her mouth. There were only three or so hours left on her shift, though she could not yet will herself into the much more pleasant state of forgetting the passage of time. She thought of Jenny and Rose, who were even now likely in that car without her. She wondered if they would still bring her along if not for her convenient employment. Jenny, at least, would drop her in a heartbeat. Tara knew Jenny thought of her as terminally boring. To Jenny, her romantic interests were commonplace, her angers and fears all clichéd into meaninglessness. Rose was more sympathetic. But what about what she thought of Jenny? It didn’t matter and they were all aware of it.
The detergent woman did not reappear for another three weeks, and when she did, she was unrecognizable. Her legs were splotched with bruises. Her skin peeled away in layers. Her eyes darted from corner to corner. Tara did not dare approach her. She stood motionless behind the counter, willing herself to become a part of the background, customer service smile plastered on her face.
“It didn’t work,” the woman muttered. “Didn’t work, didn’t work. Still dirty, dirty. Didn’t work, didn’t work.”
Then, snapping into place like a wind-up toy, the woman faced Tara, her expression one of ecstatic prayer. “What can dissolve any stain?” Tara stayed silent. “You!”
“I don’t know, ma’am,” she said, her voice beginning to break.
“Why don’t you know? I have to find it.” The woman slumped against the wall, her face dancing through expressions of agony. Even as Tara readied the emergency Narcan from beneath the counter, she constructed the possible scenarios of what she might do if a customer were to walk in. How would she be able to prevent a robbery right now? She wouldn’t. But the Narcan would not be necessary. The woman began to recover on her own, her breath slowing to relieved puffs. When she opened her eyes to look at Tara, her expression contained an encouraging recognition that suggested lucidity.
“Oh, Bonnie. I’m glad you’re here. I stopped by last week but the boy working that day was not nice at all.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tara said.
“Don’t be sorry!” The woman waved her hands as though batting flies out of the air. “But why am I here?”
“You came in about ten minutes ago. You seemed to be looking for more laundry detergent.”
“Why would I be doing that?” the woman laughed. “I have plenty at home.”
“You may not have been exactly yourself when you came in.”
The woman raised a hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry. You must have been so afraid.”
“Of course not,” Tara exclaimed. “Let’s get you home. Do you have anyone who you can call? Or an address?”
“Yes, my son. Do you have a phone in the store?”
Tara unhooked the phone from the receiver and dialed the phone number as the woman dictated it to her. As Tara waited with the phone ringing, a blank calm seemed to descend over the woman and Tara feared she had managed to wipe the memory of their conversation moments ago. Tara was startled when a voice finally came from the line.
“Who is this?” The speaker was male. “What do you think you’re doing calling at this hour?”
“This is Goodman’s Convenience. I’m very sorry to disturb you, sir. I was given this number by your mother. She’s at the store right now and she told us to contact you. I can give you the address if you have a pen handy.”
“Wait, Tara? Is that you?”
She nearly hung up the phone right then and there. “Who the hell is this and how do you know my name?”
“It’s Tim Hedley. From work?”
“Oh my god, you scared me to death,” Tara said, releasing a fit of nervous laughter. “Lead with your own name next time, asshole.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Anyway, you said my mother is at the store? Can you put her on?”
Tara handed the phone over. She could hear tense chatter over the other end of the line. As she feared, the woman seemed not to remember whatsoever the purpose of the phone call. She seemed to think he was calling just to talk, and she hoped that Tim might not disabuse her of that idea. Tara returned to shuffling her feet behind the counter.
“What? Of course I meant to come here! We needed groceries. No, it is not getting worse. I don’t feel a day over twenty-six. Well, if you insist on being like that, I’ll walk myself back.”
The woman slammed the phone back on the counter and grumbled about her son, but she did not leave the store as she had threatened to do. Returned to her right state of mind, the woman had taken on a grandmotherly affect, pacing and muttering with the affectionate exasperation of a sitcom character. Tara liked her a great deal then. She felt she was seeing a glimpse of who this slight woman was twenty years ago, before addiction or Alzheimer’s or whatever else it could be took hold of her.
Tim arrived after a half an hour of waiting, looking exhausted but surprisingly calm. The first thing he did was to approach Tara at the sales counter. The woman roamed the back aisles, nearly imperceptible aside from the occasional shuffling of feet. Tim’s hair was tangled and stuck out in all directions, and he was still in pajamas.
Finally, Tim departed with his mother in tow and protesting. “I need to talk to Bonnie!” she said.
Tim relented and headed outside to wait by their rusted minivan. The woman waited until the doors closed to begin to speak. “Do you know a girl named Tara? One of your coworkers?”
She paused, considering admitting her initial lie to the woman, but decided against it. No sense in shattering the woman’s trust. “I’ve seen her around. Why do you ask?”
The woman frowned. “Oh, I believe my son is in love with her. I believe he would have told her, but he’s under so much stress at the moment. If you see her—"
“I—Of course. I’ll let her know first thing I see her.” It couldn’t be true. What could it mean for the two of them if Tim had been in love with her all this time? That for who knows how long, he had been observing her as a romantic object? She felt she had been left out of a great secret. But then, it did not feel so bad to be wanted.
“No, no!” the woman said, her eyes wide in horror. “I meant that you can’t tell her a thing. Promise me you won’t let them meet.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “What so wrong with her?” Tara could not help taking some offense, despite the fact that she could not possibly know her message had reached the wrong ears.
The woman stammered out something unintelligible to Tara. Stress was rapidly descending upon her, and Tara began to fear the onset of another episode. “Stains on the carpet,” she said, staring unseeing into the space over Tara’s shoulder. “Baking soda and peroxide.”
Before Tara could react, the woman’s knees buckled beneath her. On the floor, the woman moaned, a low, mourning noise, as Tara held the woman’s head in her lap and stroked her hair and apologized, over and over, until saying the words felt just like breathing.
“What the hell happened?” Tim stood over her, like he could not believe the state of the two of them. Looking closer, Tara thought she could see suppressed anger in the way he pressed his lips together, in the careful rigidity of his jaw. Well, she could be angry right back. Where had he been when she had fallen? How had she even gotten herself miles from her home, if not for his own negligence?
“She fell,” Tara said. She felt the sting of tears coming on. “The hospital. She needs to go to the hospital right now. She could have broken something.”
“You’re right.” Easily and gently, Tim scooped her off the floor, carried her to their car, and laid her in the back seat.
“Stay here,” he said coldly. “Wouldn’t want you losing your job, would we?” Was Tim mocking her? The statement had a clear implication. In a word, that she was unfeeling.
“I’m not arguing this. I’ll ride in the backseat with her. You need someone to keep her secure. Besides, look at this,” she said, gesturing to the minivan. “I’ll bet you don’t even have suspension on your car.” She was glad to pay him back for her embarrassment with his own, to remind him that she would not be so easily dismissed. Despite himself, Tim seemed greatly relieved to have Tara with him. They left the store unlocked, door open and sterile light spilling into the lot, because Tara knew that there would be no one for miles around.
The woman was entirely uninjured. Doctors inspected every inch of her, taking blood samples, swabs, temperatures, but every test turned up negative. She was not on any substances, was able to complete every test perfectly, and most troublingly, her brain scans appeared perfectly healthy. Tara begged the doctors to run more tests. Tim, for his part, was resigned to accept what the tests said. Tara thought he had entirely too much trust in them. The woman seemed to have no memory of the events in the convenience store. When Tara asked her where she thought she had been before the hospital, at first she said she had been walking alongside the forest, and then she grew agitated and Tara redirected her attention before her condition could worsen again.