Cherub

I hated everyone. I hated that damned grocery store. I hated that dumb town. Hell, I hated the whole damn state. I had been working at my dad’s grocery store every summer since I was thirteen and it was that summer that I decided that it was the BANE of my existence, but I couldn’t not work there you know. I just couldn’t disappoint dear old dad after all the shit he had put up with dealing with my brother and my sister before him. So, there I was for the sixth consecutive summer, working at my dad’s store, the Shop Stop. It was just hour upon consecutive hour of wearing a green apron and a uniform of slacks and a white button down that was so starched that wearing them was kind of like wearing a slightly less restraining full body cast and making sure the shelves and various displays were stocked. I used to be a cashier but after countless occasions of me losing my temper, dad decided stock was a better position for me. What can I say? I’ve just never been a people person.

My poor old man, he just didn’t have it in his heart to fire me and oh, how I wished he did. I was making my way to the canned food isle to finish up a canned asparagus tower I had started a few hours previous. Despite hating this job, I actually enjoyed one aspect of it and that was creating displays and my all-time favorites was the tower of stuff. Whether it was toilet paper or boxes of taco shells or canned veggies, it always brought me back to my childhood when I would build houses and towers and skyscrapers with my brother and my sister. We had complete control. We could make what we wanted, change it, and destroy it just as easily. Life was not that simple anymore. Maybe it never really was.

My leather shoes were squeaking something awful, I had no idea why mom insisted that dad have the floors waxed every day, maybe it was so the customers would scare themselves with their own ugly reflections. That’s when it happened. I swear, it happened in slow motion. She was walking towards a section of baked beans when suddenly she was hurled back by something. What might have caused what was about to be a terrible accident you ask? Well I’ll tell you, it was a can of asparagus that I had no doubt left there a few hours previous…damn. She stepped right on it and probably never even saw it coming. It wouldn’t have been so bad really had it not been for the seven foot tall tower of asparagus right behind her. She fell right into it. The tower I had so meticulously planned and worked on for hours exploded. Some people ducked for cover with little benefit. A can caught a guy in the shoulder on the left and another in the nose but mostly they all just fell right on top of her. She looked so terrified as it happened as I suppose she should have. Every voice was overpowered by the loud pops, cracks, and rumbling of falling and rolling cans. It was utter chaos.We made eye contact for a few seconds before the last can made contact. She was like a light bulb ready to short out and then BLAM. She was gone.

Everyone within 20 feet stayed put to look upon the aftermath. A small group of idiots around my age were trying to stifle their laughter, two girls covered their mouths in concern and old lady shook her head. I agree lady, what a shame. I heard the terrified shrieks of my mother who was now power walking down the aisle to prevent slipping on the heavily waxed floors. “Oh dear, what’s happened!, she uprooted the girl from her grave of asparagus. She was still out cold which was not a surprise. “Kristofferson Edwin Scott, you better make this right this very instant!” My mom half whispered half hissed as if it was my fault that she fell which is most certainly was but I would never ever admit it. Her narrowed eyes left mine only for a moment to meet my dad’s. “Oh, Harris I think she’s dying!” My mom has always been one for the dramatics. My dad appeared looking frantic and frazzled. “You had better take her into the break room. Lay her down and stay with her until she wakes up while we call the ambulance son.” I sighed and threw my hands up in response to my dad’s demands. He ran his hand through his balding red hair. I reluctantly crouched down next to my mom who was cradling the girls head in her lap as if she really was dying. I put my arms under her back and behind her knees and proceeded to carry her to the break room as the onlookers watched me leave with looks of pity and mild amusement.

I kicked open the door of our break room. It was a medium sized room with a worn pillowy green couch that used to reside in our living room roughly a decade ago, a refrigerator, a television topped with antenna, a coffee machine and two bright, humming vending machines that stole your money about 75% of the time, yet everyone still used them. I laid her out on the couch and pulled up one of the various chairs that had made their way to the break room, no doubt a hand me down from my own home and sat in front of the sad couch with the even sadder looking girl who had now been laid out on top of it. Despite the fact that she would probably be regarded as the town loser for the next few months, she was a cute one. She was a small, tiny thing with freckles all over her face like someone had thrown dirt on her from far away and long eyelashes like one of my little sisters’ baby dolls. She looked around sixteen or seventeen. Upon further investigation, I had recognized her. She came to the store every few weeks to buy groceries, always wearing a wide brimmed straw hat, and for some reason, ear plugs. I bet she was a weirdo, she looked it. I ran my hand through my hair. No doubt a habit I had developed from my father. I watched her sleep and listened to the soft sound of her breathing. I couldn’t believe what a creep I was turning in to. A few minutes later she woke up. I fell in love the second she opened her big, stupid eyes. They were dark brown, like a new born foal’s. She just stared at me for a while, blinking her long dark eyelashes like it all made sense, as if there was nothing strange about her waking up in a strange room, on a sad strange couch, in front of a sad strange boy. I knew I must have looked just as sad as I thought she did. I stared right back at her and as cliché as it sounds, I just knew. It was love.