Sadie the Sadist: X-tremely Black Humor/Horror (14 page)

The Store Manager claims he has an “open door” policy, but his door is always shut. Attempting to determine if he’s in his office, I slide down to the floor and press my cheek against the concrete trying to peer through the crack. His light is on. “Just Another Manic Monday,” an 80’s song we’re forced to hear each afternoon, plays over the intercom. The song seems appropriate. One, because it’s actually Monday. Two, because the manager is manic-depressive; these days they call it bipolar. I’ve reached this conclusion because he posts conflicting messages around the store in
employee only
areas.

One week:

The Worst!

Really?

Come on people, FOCUS!!!

The next week:

Great Job Team!

U R the Best!

The
worst
at what? The
best
why? I’m clueless about what he’s referring too, but the notes act as a barometer for the Store Manager’s mood. I asked Liam what the signs mean, and he wasn’t sure either, but he thinks it has something to do with how many holes they shoot in each department. Every day, at some mysterious time, someone goes around the store
shooting
empty spaces on the shelves. Not with a gun, with a scanner. There’s some kind of ratio they have to meet, and if they find too many holes, the Store Manager has a fit.

Psyching myself up to knock on the door of his office, hoping he’s not in the throes of a psychotic episode, I brush dust off my black pants and stand on trembling legs.

I tap lightly.

“Come in.”

He’s hunched over his computer, shoulders pressed toward his head as if he has no neck.

I clear my throat.

He continues staring at the screen.

“Can I help you—” He glances at my nametag. “Sadie.”

“I, ah … I was wondering, did you get my application?”

“Application?”

“For the position of Assistant Manager.” I urge my voice to be commanding, but I sound like a hamster.

“Assistant Manager of what?”

“The st-store.”

Tearing his attention away from his computer, he looks at me, his expression puzzled.

“That position isn’t available.”

I study my sneakers (Brooks Adrenalines, atomic blue with red accents), noticing one of the laces is untied.

“Is there something else, Sarah?”

“It’s Sadie,” I mutter, but I don’t think he hears me. He’s back at his computer, typing. “I was just, ah, wondering if you saw my résumé.”

“Did you apply online?”

“Yes,” I squeak. “I attached my résumé to the application.” Words fly out of my mouth, stumbling over one another. “I have experience. Assistant Manager at Brother’s Grocery. I mean, it was a while ago, but they really liked me. If you look at—”

Recognition overtakes his face.

“You’re a bagger, aren’t you?”

“Courtesy Clerk.” I slow down, forcing my voice into a register that sounds less like Nemo screaming for his dad. “But if you look at my résumé—”

“Hold on, Sarah. Let me check my e-mail.”

He returns to his computer.

“It’s Sadie.”

“What?”

“My name is Sadie.”

“Sadie, right. Here’s your résumé.” He reads aloud, “
Maid
at Travel Host motel,
Candy Counter
at 5 Star Movie Theater,
Manager
of ...” He swivels his chair to face me. “Tell me about Brother’s Grocery.”

“They went out of business.”

“Locally owned?”

“I think so.”

“You
think
so. And you managed the store for five years?” He sounds skeptical.

I nod.

“You left that job when?”

“About eight years ago?” It comes out like a question.

“How old are you, Sadie?”

“Thirty-two.”

“So you managed a supermarket before you were twenty?”

I avert my eyes, and do the math.

“Yeah.”

“That’s impressive.”

Shifting from foot to foot, I suppress my sudden need to pee.

“I can do more than Courtesy Clerk.” My squeak vaults to new heights. “I’ve been working here for five months and—” An idea occurs to me. “Is there anything in Meat?”

He glances at a clipboard, flips to the second page, runs his finger down a column.

“Nothing open in Meat. There’s a position in Salad Bar. I’ll speak with Terri and see what she recommends.”

What does Terri have to do with this?

I want to shout that at him, want to scream.

Instead, I say, “Thank you.” And then I give a little bob, almost a curtsy, as if I’m auditioning for the role of scullery maid on
Downton Abbey.

The Store Manager dismisses me with a nod.

I drag my feet out of his office, my mind as confused as a plate of spaghetti. I need a double dose of Xanax washed down with a bottle of Chianti, Hannibal Lecter style.

Life has kicked me back to Salad Bar
,
cutting, shucking, wrapping. Determined to see the bright side, I tell myself it’s a promotion, even though I’m going in a circle. I tell myself corn season is nearly over and now that Justus is gone maybe I can handle the job. In any case I’ll make more money, and I’ll be working with Liam again. Even though he hardly speaks, or maybe because of that, Liam is the only person I can talk to around here.

I’ve missed our conversations.

As I climb the stairs, heading back to the check stands and Terri the Terrible, my mood elevates. If I get Salad Bar again, I’ll be in the perfect position to execute my plans.

Execute
is an awesome word, isn’t it?

Summer is a great time for bar-b-ques, and nothing goes better with spicy ribs or chicken than creamy coleslaw. But, these days, people are so busy and our jobs are so demanding that we barely have time for get-togethers. Wouldn’t it be great to have some unexpected time off? Dry mustard gives this slaw a kick, but the secret ingredient gives it clout. Pass this dish around at your next gathering and all your guests can call in sick!

Ingredients:

1 large green cabbage, shredded

3 carrots, shredded

2 tablespoons onion, grated

¾ cup mayonnaise

½ cup half-and-half (more, if you like it extra creamy)

2 tablespoons white vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

½ teaspoon celery salt

½ teaspoon dried mustard

Black pepper and salt to taste

Secret ingredient: 1 cup raw chicken juice, room temperature

Preparation
:

In a large bowl, toss together shredded cabbage and carrots.

In another bowl, mix mayonnaise, half-and-half, sugar, vinegar, dried mustard, and grated onion. Mix into the cabbage and carrot. Add salt and pepper to taste. Then mix in the chicken juice.

Note
: Mayonnaise will rarely cause salmonella (even when it’s left out), so for optimal results be sure to add chicken juice.

Terri recommended me for Salad Bar. She told the Store Manager I’m reliable and a hard worker, told him I deserve another chance
,
and the Produce Manager agreed to take me back. No doubt he misses me, needs a lackey to shuck corn—not to mention other crappy jobs.

The Produce Manager tends to focus on minutia. I think he’s OCD. Once he spent two days peeling labels off the basement floor. Labels fall off crates of vegetables and fruit, stick to the concrete, and drive him crazy. Ovals, rectangles, squares. Sometimes the labels get so stuck you have to use a razorblade to scrape them off. He assigned me a new job: Label Patrol. He gave me a razor blade and I considered using it to slit his throat, but I changed my mind when he gave me Saturday off.

Everyone who works here is nuts. It’s a prerequisite.

Being stuck in the basement makes me wacko. Sometimes they let me out, so I can stock upstairs on the floor. Stocking allows me to stalk customers, under pretense of arranging fruits and vegetables. You can tell a lot about a person by what they choose to purchase.

I find fruit and vegetables suggestive. Some are downright pornographic. If you’re in the market for a phallus, never mind bananas (our most popular item), you should see the butternut squash I put out today—talk about a schlong. Actually, butternut can go either way, male or female; if the neck isn’t distended to match the size of your favorite dildo, the shape is often reminiscent of a woman. No ambiguity regarding the sex of cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, yams—need I mention corn? When it comes to balls, nothing outdoes coconuts. In the Produce Department female erotica favors fruit, including the much debated (fruit or vegetable?) tomato. Some people select the obvious persimmon—fiery red, sensuously slippery, and juicy. Practical types choose apples, oranges, and, if feeling adventurous, grapes. Those striving for elegance often prefer berries. Then there are sexy tropicals: papaya, guava, passion fruit. Peaches are popular, not as lusty or seedy as tropicals. Like southern belles, I find peaches virginal and dangerous—the flesh soft and sweet, the core a tough nut laced with cyanide. For the more mature taste we have eggplant, figs, and a variety of pears. For the immature, kiwi and cherries. If you’re kinky, you may venture into exotics like the brilliant yellow/orange blowfish fruit, also known as the African horned cucumber. And don’t forget the Queen of Fertility: pomegranate.

After spending a couple of hours on the floor arranging genitalia, I’m back in the sense-deprived dungeon. (That’s what Liam calls the basement.) No windows. No fresh air. Cold and damp. The bowels of the supermarket. As usual, I’m chopping fruit and vegetables (slicing, slashing, dicing reproductive organs)—and my daily dose of corn.

The truth is Terri wanted to get rid of me, because she
knows
I should have been appointed Assistant Manager. Consequently, I’ve been banished to the basement, but she won’t find me easy to escape.

Thanks to the new intercom system, they’ve changed the rules here in Produce. Used to be, when a customer needed something you’d hop to it, jump onto the elevator and rush downstairs to find watercress, arugula, ginger root, whatever. Now, since we have the intercom, instead of hurrying downstairs, we’re supposed to page someone working in the basement (usually me), and have them hunt for whatever the customer needs. Then the person in the basement sends the item up in the elevator.

This policy has traumatized Liam. The poor guy barely speaks, and now he’s supposed to blast his voice all over the store whenever a customer requests a lemon. Yesterday Terri the Terrible caught him sneaking down to Produce to look for ginger root and she wrote him up. Today, when a customer asked for a case of bananas and Liam came down here to get it, she wrote him up a second time.

That pisses me off.

Three strikes and you’re out.

Using a machete, I whack a cabbage and imagine splitting Terri’s skull.

The reprise of “Life is a Carnival” is interrupted and the intercom goes silent. After a few moments, Liam’s shaking voice comes through the speakers, “S-S-Sadie in P-Produce, p-please dial extension 3-1-2.”

I go to the phone, punch in the number.

“What’s up?”

Liam mumbles something.

“What?”

“RED. ONIONS.”

He clicks off.

I leave the chilly work area, and enter the cellar where we keep stuff that doesn’t need refrigeration. A giant bin of watermelons sits in the middle of the floor, obstructing the fire safety zone. Crates of potatoes and onions are stacked along the walls, balanced so precariously that Doctor Seuss would be impressed. My path to the onions is blocked by overloaded carts and a towering pallet of corn. I shift a U-boat filled with boxes of raisins, creating a small opening which allows me to squeeze past the pallet of corn, so I can shimmy over the bin of watermelons, maneuver past a cart of tomatoes, and reach the wall of onions and potatoes. Several bruises later, having arrived at my destination, I sort through russets, reds, whites, yams, organic fingerlings—and find the red onion crate buried at the bottom. I dig the box of onions out, placing other crates on top of the bin of watermelons. This leaves a void between the potatoes crates and a ten foot stack of black plastic RPCs loaded with peppers. The RPCs teeter. I dive over the bin of watermelons, dodging crates and pepper bombs.

Liam’s voice comes over the intercom.

“S-S-Sadie in P-Produce, p-please dial extension 3-1-2.”

Picking my way through smashed peppers and potatoes, I squeeze past the pallet of corn, shift the U-boat filled with raisins, open the door leading into Produce, pick up the phone’s receiver, and punch in 3-1-2.

“What’s up?”

“Forget the onions.”

The phone clicks off.

Returning to the pepper disaster, I scramble after yellow, orange, red Bells, little Jalapenos, dark green Poblanos, pale green Anaheims, and bright orange Habaneros. Nothing as potent as a Ghost or Scorpion. I asked the Produce Manager if we could order Trinidad Moruga Scorpions, and he said
definitely not
. So I found them online.

I’m not tall enough to restack the pepper crates, so I leave them in several piles. Then I go back to chopping cabbage. I use red (purple really) for its magnificent color. Speaking of flamboyant, I wonder what effect it would have to add a Trinidad Scorpion to the Ranch dressing. The pepper is brilliant, orangey-red; I’d have to use the juice, rather than the pulp, so it’s not detected. I watched a guy eat a Scorpion on YouTube. He popped the entire pepper into his mouth and chewed. The intensity kept building, until he could barely talk and started coughing, sweat pouring down his face, his eyes red and watering. Between spasms, he described torturous hot-cold sensations in the back of his throat. When he finally swallowed, his intestinal track went into convulsions. But the pepper didn’t kill him. You’d have to eat three pounds of those things to die. I decide against lacing the Ranch dressing, because chances are they’d trace it back to me.

Before processing, I pull on fresh latex gloves. We’ve been extra careful since the salmonella outbreak. They think the bacteria originated in Produce. Probably the sprouts. (The Salad Bar no longer offers them.) Or it may have been passed by contaminated cantaloupe. (Always wash the rind.) At first they feared listeria—there was an outbreak a couple of years ago before I worked here. Listeria is more serious than salmonella.