Attack and Release - A Short Story

Attack and Release

By Nikola Todorovic

I came home earlier than usual. She was laying on the leather sofa, her brown hair spilling over the armrest maybe an inch or two off the floor. The ceiling fan caused the hair to gently wave at me. I waived back.

“What are you doing home so early? I thought you were working until two.”

“Well you know how I get in there” I tried to laugh, half to myself and the other half to her “I gotta leave early at least one day week or I just lose it.”

Except today I didn’t leave early. Today I was fired, let go. I didn’t want to tell her about it yet, I knew she’d be disappointed. This was the third job I’ve been let go from in the last four years and I knew she was hoping this one would stick. It needed to stick. Money has been tight ever since we decided to buy a house, and losing half our income wasn’t something we could deal with. We’ve been having trouble dealing with a lot things lately.

“You seem sad, rough day?”

“Rough enough I ‘spose” The fridge was empty when I opened the door.

“You forgot to grab beer, didn’t I text you that?” she tapped at her phone screen a couple times “Right here ‘Grab beer, sunglasses emoji’ I knew I sent it.”

“I forgot”, was my excuse, “I’ll run to the new gas station after I change”. I moved to our bedroom on the third floor. A bed with frame and box spring, dresser with a 30” Sony TV on top, two black night stands with no drawers, and a pair of sliding closet doors greeted me. This is where we slept, and sometimes lived. No crumbs on the bed, she must have changed the sheets. I went to the closet, a perfectly ordinary one as far as closets go. Shallow depth, a plastic rod connected from one side to the other where our clothes hung, and a stack of boxes below all the clothes. When was the last we even looked at this stuff? We’ve been together four years and have lived in four places. Some of these boxes might not have been opened for those four years, like a time capsule. I’m not sure why but I got down there and pulled one out, maybe because time capsules were supposed to be opened in five years. On the lid of the box written in my hand with black sharpie read,

STUFF

Inside were things I hadn’t seen in awhile. Old CD’s, DVD’s, t-shirts, and a picture of a younger me. I took a closer look at the t-shirts, pulling them out one by one. They were old band shirts. Sonic youth, Sex Pistols, The Black Keys, a few more. I can’t remember the last time I saw these shirts. The CD’s matched the bands on the shirts, and the DVD’s were better left in the box. It feels like a lifetime since I’ve seen any of this stuff. I’d nearly forgotten about these things, and now I felt like I’ve forgotten the person who used to own them. I stood over the box for a while just staring at it before picking up the pen on the nightstand. It deserved a better label so I gave it one underneath the original and slide the box back in place.

When I finished dressing I went down stairs for my keys. The clock on the oven read 11:30 in green digital font. She was still where I left her, scrolling through her phone, TV playing in the background. She reminded me to grab snacks too with the kind of smile you’d give a forgetful old uncle hoping they wouldn’t ask you to repeat yourself. I walked over to her laying there on the couch with her legs crossed at the ankles and planted a kiss on her forehead. I told her not to worry,

“I’ll grab the whole damn store if I have to.”

My bank balance might say different though. I thought back to the box and the person who used to own it. I could steal the stuff, at least some of the stuff. I haven’t stolen anything since I was a teenager. The thought made me feel like a pebble was settling at the bottom of my stomach. Thinking about the first pebble caused a second one to fall beside it.

There was a new gas station down the street from us. Brand new actually, finished construction a week ago and opened up a couple days ago. It’s one of the fancy ones that have a spot for fresh produce, a walk in beer cooler, and an entire aisle dedicated to a variety of hard alcohol, both cheap and pricey. The place wasn’t far but it was late and the streets slick from a steady drizzle. My mind went blank for a minute, or it felt like a minute. I found myself at the gas station unsure of who added the autopilot feature to my car. The place looked like a split level home stretched and warped like someone did a poor job photoshopping it. It sported a massive sign on the roof like an obnoxious hat that read KUM & GO in red lettering. The lights behind the red plates of the sign were supposed to add some kind of inviting atmosphere, I’m sure. The weather made it come off as gloomy and depressing though. The buildings glass walls, streaked and runny now, bordered the entire split level. What wasn’t glass was painted the company's signature white and red.

I took a look around to find that my Ford Focus was the only car parked in the lot and that I’d already turned my engine off. It felt right sitting in the lot, the Ford I mean, like it belonged to this setting, in front of this particular gas station, in this particular weather, at this particular time - 11:38 according to the readout on the dash.

I took my time getting to the door. Not sure why, just didn’t feel like rushing. I was still thinking about what I could do to get everything I needed. The small drops of rain and quick blasts of wind that would pass by made the air feel wild and alive. I closed my eyes and took deep breaths trying to get myself together. Too stubborn to zip my coat up I started to feel the first signs of moisture seep through my flannel shirt and the t-shirt underneath. I can’t stand out here all day. Above the handles were white stickers with red lettering.

PULL

Fluorescent lights hung in the air on thin wire bleaching out the store and causing the new floors to shine how you’d expect new floors to shine. I didn’t want to be the one responsible for dirtying it so I rubbed the soles of my sneakers against the stores red and white welcome mat enough times to remind me of skateboarding, to remind me of a picture, to remind me of a box at the bottom of a closet, to remind me of a word written in thick black ink. The mat now resembled that ink, why would you make a white welcome mat? At the counter to the right stood a young girl, college student maybe. Her black hair fell over the shoulder and stopped just above the elbow, she had on a red polo shirt with white embroidery on the side that read “KUM AND GO”. Off her thin wrist hangs a thick bangle bracelet, it’s pattern snake skin with thin gold stripes on the outside edges. She was looking down at a book on the counter below. I waved anyway in case she looked up but nothing. Taking my first few steps on the white tile I started to feel something strange. I don’t know if feel is the right word for it. It’s like my ears popped and threw me out of whack, it’s hard to explain. I’d get that feeling sometimes, that uneasy out of whack feeling. Like something unexpected that might pop up on you. Like a worm pops out of the dirt in a rain shower. It’ll crawl closer until it’s sure you’ll hear it. “HI” it’ll say and you’ll say hi back, hell maybe even waive at it, but after everything is said and done you’d both be back on your own ways. This feeling wasn’t letting me get back to my way.

Looking up I could see myself reflected back at me by the shoplifter mirrors set up around the building. It was weird looking up at myself like this. Weirder still to see me looking back down at myself. The clerk is still reading her book. Must be a good book not to notice a creep staring right at you. In my mind- and probably my reflections too- I was the creep. After all what kind of people are alone at a gas station at this late at night?-That aren’t getting paid.

The store was new as new could be. Clean enough to be called sterile and large enough to get lost in. This place was it’s own world tucked into the pocket of a glass covered, split level home of a building. I moved over to the fresh food stand, it was hard to miss with a thick sign jutting up over the isles that read FRUIT. A landmark in this new world. There wasn’t much fruit at the stand at all, not that I could afford it. The price for fruit was expensive at the chain grocery stores as is but a gas station is another story. One bag of clementines- $7.99, a family of three bananas- 1.09 per pound, two apples one red and one green- $1 each. I picked up one of the apples to make sure it wasn’t decorative.I squeezed it in my hand and applied pressure until one of my nails slide into the flesh. I put the apple back in the same spot it was and wiped my hand on my jeans. It wasn’t decorative.

I turned into an aisle filled with candy. Bags of gummy worms, bears, octopi, cola bottles, children, and siamese snakes lined the top half of the walls. The bottom half was where the candy bars seem to have been segregated to. A series of small shelves jutted out of the walls that held up boxes. These boxes were apparently organized by shade of color. The black and brown boxes were at the start of the isles where I was, the farther down you went the more color variation you’d see. The top self ended in red, the second, in blue, third in an orange and yellow mix. I wonder if the clerk stocked these shelves. I look up at the mirror to see if she’s still reading her book. She is. Whenever this aisle was stocked I’d bet she was probably standing at that counter reading.

Something is coming over me, some kind of sluggishness. My legs feel thick and heavy, like I’ve been hiking up a mountain for the last hour. I walk down the aisle slowly, deliberately. There are landmines all around me and I step in between each one. Going this slowly lets me get a good look at the large variety of candy this place carries. If they ever run out of room in the aisle they could always use the fruit stand. By the time I reach the end I had a good idea of what candy I could get us, if the beer is cheap enough.

The doors of the beer cooler slide open welcoming me inside. The cool air whipped me in the face, then slowly spread through my damp clothes. The beer cooler was surprisingly large. The room was designed to hold four racks in the middle of the floor in addition to the racks attached to the walls and still have plenty of space to move around it all. All the brands are in this room. I walk over to where the mexican beers are at. Modello, Sol, Pacifico, Dos Equis, Victoria, they had a solid selection. The Dos Equis is her favorite, and mine, but the price made it unrealistic. Damn, I was really hoping I’d be able to pick up one of these. Standing there I watched my breath leave my body in streams of white fog. The longer I stand in the cooler the more my head begins to clear and the feeling returns to my limbs. I cracked my back while looking through the beers. Now at the Keystone, Natty-Light, and Busch Light, I hear the tone chime from the doors out front. I stood in the cooler and spied from the sliding door of the cooler. I wonder what my reflection had to say about that. A man had come in. He stood tall in a grey windbreaker with the hood pulled up, and his hands deep in his pockets. A few slow steps in, he looked around the store. He must not have seen me since he didn’t wave back to me either. The man moved up to the front counter where the girl was still reading her book. She didn’t look up. The man must’ve stood there for a full minute before the cashier began to lift her head. The cooler wasn’t that far from the counter but the only thing I could notice was the girls expression slowly shifting. When her head finally met the man's eyes his hand came out of his jacket pocket with an impossible bend. In his hand he gripped a black piece of iron. The girls face took a minute to register the handgun. Lines, like the creases of a well loved book, started writing their story on the girls face until the only emotion that showed was fear. I felt similar lines make their way across my own face. Time to book it.

I don’t know if it was the cold or the the adrenaline, but any problem I might have had with taking things that didn’t belong to me were gone. After all I wasn’t the one pointing a gun into a person's face. I grabbed two six packs of the Dos Equis. With a soundless swoosh the sliding doors of the cooler open and closed as I snuck back into the candy aisle. Crouching through the aisle with both six packs tucked under my right arm I started grabbing at any and everything my left arm could reach shoving the candy into any pockets that weren’t yet filled. It might’ve looked like I was paddling my way through the aisle as the coat turned pouch kept growing. My body started to get that out of whack feeling again. I’ve had enough of this place. I might not be an architect, but there’s no way this place should be this large on the inside. It felt unbelievably strange and alien the more time I spent inside it and I wasn’t planning on getting stuck in a building with some nut.

I peeked around the corner to make sure the mans attention was still focused on the cashier. She eventually noticed me, or her eyes did at least and we all just stood there in that moment. Her eyeing me, me eyeing the man in the windbreaker, and the man in the windbreaker eyeing her. Life has a weird way of connecting people I guess. I shrugged at her, what could I do, and started moving for the door. Every step felt like lifting concrete. Was it the store that was causing this or did I just pack myself down with too much stuff? Didn’t matter. Can’t stop now, I pushed myself harder than I had in years. I moved one of the six packs to the left hand, maybe I’ll move faster. There was no sound in the store, the only thing I could guess was that the girls stare gave me away. The man began to turn, or at least try. He looked like Keanu out of the Matrix with those slow movements. By the time I was nearly at the door they were both looking at me, I wonder what kind of face they see on me. I tried to open my mouth but the words wouldn’t come. I mouthed an empty phrase hoping they’d understand, hoping the cashier wouldn’t hold any hard feelings and that the man wouldn’t pull the trigger - on me at least. They both looked confused, my hand touched the door and I mouthed it again I’m no hero.

Stumbling out I lost two bottles to the concrete outside the store, guess I’m bringing home a ten pack. The rain was dropping water balloons now. The sound of it beating at the building was all I could hear before collapsing into the car, the bottles flying to the floor of the passenger side and the candy into the cracks of the seat. Slamming the key into the ignition I turned the thing nearly hard enough to snap it off and the car roared to life. Foot to the pedal, the little four cylinder engine moved like it’s own life was in danger. I sped the short way home, my hands gripping the wheel tight enough to cause my knuckles to go bone white. There was no autopilot this time. Still pushing over thirty five by the time I made it back I slammed the brakes in front of the dirty garage door. My hands were shaking, should I call the police? I don’t want to be charged as a robber, or an accomplice. I told myself I’d check back there tomorrow, check the news, just check something, tomorrow. The cardboard boxes for the Dos Equis were soggy from the rain. I reached down to pick up the bottles. I’m not sure if they were wet because of the rain or if they were just sweating from the situation at the station. Either way they were covered with specks of grit and dirt from my cars floor. Putting them back into the soggy cardboard container and trying to gather as much of the snacks as I could, I reached up to hit the garage door opener. It had something written on it that caught my eye.

PUSH

The mechanism that lifted the garage whined into action and the door flew up without issue. Normally the thing would take forever to heave itself into the open position, but it must’ve known better than to give me trouble tonight. The Focus crawled up and into the garage until it stopped on top of the oil stain that marked its spot. We were home. I turned the engine off and started reaching in between the seats to grab whatever candy I might have missed. I climbed up the staircase and through the hall into the living room, my legs felt like jelly. She came down the stairs from the bedroom, hair wet from a shower. She was wearing a pair of my sweatpants, rolled up at the waist so they wouldn’t be too long for her. Her shirt had a picture of Tupac on it showing him giving the camera, or me, the finger. She couldn’t help but laugh when she saw me.

“You look like you should be living under a bridge, what happened?” she said still trying to hold back laughing.

“I lost my job today.”