Sadie the Sadist: X-tremely Black Humor/Horror (5 page)

The mother fishes through her purse while Wendy sighs, juts out her hip. Wendy won’t ring anything up until the savings card is scanned, because it starts a timer. As soon as that card number is entered she’ll start pushing stuff along the belt so quickly I’ll have to hustle to keep up. At the end of each week the times are calculated and the speediest checker wins prizes like frozen pizza, store brand ice cream, a five-dollar gift certificate. Wendy always wins.

The woman emerges from her purse, card in hand, and that’s my cue.

“Plastic okay?”

I stand between two racks of bags, willing her to say
yes.
Plastic is much easier to load than those fabric bags the tree huggers lug into the store, but nothing irritates me more than paper. Paper bags slide off my racks and, if I manage to load them, I’m too short to see into them. Whenever people ask for paper, I want to shout,
Timber!

I don’t say anything, but Sadie the Sadist does.

Nudging me, she whispers,
Fuck her; use the plastic
.

Without waiting for the woman’s answer, I flounce my plastic bags, preparing them for loading.

“Whatever works,” the woman says.

Score for me.

And score for her.

I won’t smash her buns.

The toddler taps her glitter wand on my head.

I stick out my tongue and I quickly retract it. (Sadie the Sadist did that.)

The kid scrunches up her nose.

“I don’t like you.”

“I don’t like you either,” I say quietly, so only she can hear.

The wand slaps me.

“Arboles, that’s not nice.” The woman glances at me, concerned. “You all right?”

“Fine.”

When her mother turns away, I bare my teeth at Arboles and snarl.

Wendy is on a roll, pushing toilet paper, celery, shampoo, eggs, and milk along the belt so fast that I experience a pileup. You might think bagging is easy, but I have to think fast. The nightmare is forgetting to give a bag to a customer. If I notice in time, I chase them through the parking lot. Otherwise, I have to bring the bag to the Customer Service desk. Do that often enough and I’ll be written up.

Justus already gave me a verbal warning.

Which reminds me: I haven’t seen him today.

That realization lifts my mood.

Humming along to the piped-in music (“Life in a War Zone”), I finish bagging the woman’s stuff and load each bag into the cart, while attempting to avoid an attack of the witch’s wand.

At least the little shit stopped shrieking.

When they leave, I ask Wendy, “You seen Justus?”

She juts out her hip. “Why? You miss him?”

I smirk.

So does she, playing it cool, but everybody knows Wendy has the hots for him.

“Now that you mention it,” she says to me, “I haven’t seen that man since Friday.” Then, turning to her buddy at Check Stand 10, “You seen Justus lately?”

“I heard he called in sick.”

Wendy frowns. “Maybe he walked.”

Employees do that around here, quit without giving notice. One guy marched over to the manager, threw his apron down, and shouted, “I can’t take it anymore.” Then there was the girl who worked in Deli for two hours, went for a smoke and never came back. Don’t forget the bakers—two middle-aged women who got into a fistfight in the middle of the night. Frozen baguettes make great weapons.

Note to self:
If the baguette gets bloody, just stick it in an oven and bake away the evidence.

My point is, people come and go here faster than Louie CK (Sadie’s favorite comedian) agrees to a blowjob.

But I don’t think Justus would walk. He’s a manager, enjoys pushing people around and makes good money. Why would he give that up?

I’ve got a hinky feeling about him.

“Sadie, you’re staring into space.”

I don’t like being interrupted. My hinky feeling is replaced by anger.

A supervisor stands in front of me. Curly hair, a goofy smile that makes me want to punch her teeth. I haven’t memorized all the CRM’s names yet, so I read her tag:
Terri.

Terri for terrible.

“I need a propane exchange. Sadie, will you get that, please?”

She phrases it like a question, but it’s an order. I head to the service desk, get the key out of the drawer, then meet the customer out front where we keep tanks of propane. I unlock the storage unit, the sun beating down, so hot I wonder if the tanks of propane might explode. I know they’re not supposed to, but what if the tanks got so toasty they burst? What if someone lit a match?

The customer’s car pulls up to the curb. He hands me an empty tank, and I hand him a full one. At any given time, we have over a hundred five-gallon tanks on hand, about five thousand gallons of propane. That should be enough to incinerate this building.

I go back inside, replace the key in the drawer, and head to Check Stand 9, but someone else is bagging—a kid they hired yesterday.

Terri looks up from her clipboard, says, “Sadie, it’s your turn to do carts.”

Bitch.

Have you noticed how she picks on me? I wanted to enjoy the air-conditioning, and now I have to go outside again. The last thing I feel like doing is dragging carts around the sweltering parking lot.

My fists clench. Sadie the Sadist is on the verge of punching Terri’s nose.

Stop!

Sadie can be impulsive, but sometimes it’s best to wait, best to make a plan.

Unclenching my fists, I summon my sweetest voice and say, “Sure thing, Terri. I’ll get right on those carts.”

I slip on an orange safety vest, grab a leash to rope the carts so they won’t roll away—and add
Terri
to my list.

My favorite recipes include stews and casseroles. Comfort food. I especially like soup—it’s easy to make and versatile. This is a basic recipe for stock. Enjoy it as it stands, or use it as a base. It freezes well. This recipe calls for chicken, but you can substitute beef, pork, or other meat. Experiment. Use what you have on hand. I’m a great one for economizing. Remember bones add flavor, so be sure to include them. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

Chicken, cut into 4-8 parts (or other cuts of meat)

¼ cup oil

5 carrots, coarsely chopped

5 celery stalks, including leaves, coarsely chopped

Ginger root, coarsely chopped

1 large onion, unpeeled and coarsely chopped

1 head of garlic, cut in half

1 large bunch of parsley or cilantro

Sprig of whatever herbs you have around (thyme, sage, rosemary)

White wine to taste, about 1 cup (for red meat, use red wine)

Water to cover the meat

Preparation
:

Heat oil in a large stock pot. Add vegetables and ginger. Cook till brown, about 10 minutes. Add chicken, herbs, wine, and water to cover the chicken. Lower heat to medium. When stock boils, lower to simmer. Here’s the important part: remove chicken after simmering ½ hour, cut meat from the bone, return the bones to the pot to simmer for about 4 hours—skimming off foam as it forms. Removing the meat ensures it won’t be overcooked, returning the bones ensures that you’ll get the flavor. After the stock has reduced, strain out the bones and vegetables.

After I make stock, I like to let it sit in the refrigerator overnight. That allows the fat to rise, so I can skim it from the surface. Leave a little fat for flavor. Ginger adds a kick, and sometimes I’ll add a lemon, or a dash of cayenne. To make soup: cut up the saved meat and return it to the stock, add sautéed vegetables, barley or pasta—whatever you like, bring to a simmer, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Note: This basic recipe can be doubled, tripled, quadrupled —depending on how much meat you have. It’s a great way to get rid of leftovers. Make sure you pick out all the bones (the small ones can be sticklers) or they may be used as evidence.

Over the past few days a lot has changed at the supermarket.

The check stands have been moved so the contractors they hired for the remodel can redo the floor, plus they’ve rearranged the aisles again. Bandages are no longer next to macaroni; you’ll find them on Aisle 6 across from oatmeal.

There’s this new guy in Deli. He’s about my age, not a kid, but not an old man either. His glasses make him look intelligent and I like his legs. They’re muscular and tan. I know, because he wears shorts to work. (We’re allowed to wear black, knee-length shorts from Memorial to Labor Day.) I met him on the freight elevator. I was bringing down the trash cart, after emptying all the garbage cans, when Ranger rolled in a U-boat of roasted chickens destined for the dumpster. His name is Richard, but everybody calls him Ranger. He helped me load my garbage into the compactor—the bags from the trash cans outside the store are especially heavy—and, in return, I gave him a BJ in the employee bathroom. It’s unisex, down in the basement, and the door locks.

Now the poor schmoe is in love with me. Women sense these things, and we lefties are intuitive. He’s obsessed. I feel his eyeballs on my butt whenever I walk past.

But blowing Ranger is not the big thing (no pun intended).

The big thing is:
Justus is dead, and I’m not sure if I killed him.

I heard about the accident this afternoon, as soon as I arrived at work. Several versions spread through the store like wildfire. According to one account, a car hit him up on River Road, not far from where I live. Another says he suffered a heart attack while riding his bike to the supermarket. A third version claims a passing car spat a rock that hit him in the head.

Unlike me, Justus never wears a helmet.

Anyway, he’s gone.

But I don’t think it was an accident.

Cut to several weeks ago, when I was at home recovering from
my
so-called accident. (I call it Justus attempting to slice off my thumb.)

I live alone, thanks to my ex-husband. He wanted kids. I didn’t. He used to bug me all the time. Irreconcilable differences, but we never divorced. I guess I should call him
late,
not ex.

The guy was far from punctual except when it came to dying. He croaked three years ago when he was thirty-one and I was twenty-nine. We bought this condominium, then one night when he was drunk (as usual) he took a bad fall down the stairs leading from our unit to the courtyard. They call them units, not apartments, which sounds like some kind of cell, but really the place is pretty nice: two bedrooms, one and a half baths, and a working fireplace. Anyway, he cracked his skull on the concrete and I inherited the mortgage. Also a used truck, my husband’s power tools, and $30,000 life insurance from his job as a plumber. That’s how I bought my Cruiser bike, smart TV, smartphone, iPad, a new laptop, I don’t remember what else—but the money’s gone. The truck guzzles gas, so most of the time I ride my bicycle.

Anyway, several weeks ago, after my so-called accident, I was hanging out on my balcony, sipping Diet Pepsi and popping Dilaudid while checking out the passing cars, when I spotted Justus on his bicycle. I tracked the bald spot on his head as he rode along the bike path, passing my condominium complex, kept watching as he cycled along the path and turned toward the supermarket.

That’s when Sadie the Sadist convinced me to start practicing.

The bandage on my left hand made climbing down from the folding chair difficult, so I had to support myself with my right hand. That’s how the whole ambidextrous thing started. After climbing down, I noticed something annoying in my shoe, took the shoe off and found a pebble. Using my right hand, I threw the pebble off the balcony. Not a bad shot. I managed to hit the wooden fence, and I felt sure, with practice and a heavier object, I could hit a passing car—or bicycle.

“Sadie, you’re staring into space again.”

Terri the Terrible glances at her clipboard.

“It’s 7:45. You’re scheduled to clean the bathrooms. Make sure you sign off, and don’t forget to mop the Men’s Room.”

“Will do.”

My foot juts out; Sadie the Sadist is about to trip Terri, but I quickly pull back my sneaker (Nike,
Air Pegasus—
understated, classy).

Sadie the Sadist is disgusted.

Wimp.

“Shut up.”

A customer glances at me, no doubt wondering if
shut up
was meant for her.

“Sorry, ma’am.”

I meander toward the bathrooms.

During the day the store hires a porter, but come evening cleaning is the responsibility of Courtesy Clerks. The Men’s Room is always gross; talk about needing practice taking aim.

Before hitting the bathrooms, I detour through Pharmacy and circle the store’s perimeter, passing through Dairy, Meat, Bakery and Produce to reach Deli.

I spot Ranger by the display of roasted chickens. This time of day, they pull leftover chickens and throw them in the compactor.

The fake robot senses my approach.

“May I take your order?”

“Shut up, stupid.”

“What?” Ranger looks up from the case, pokes his glasses.

“Not you, the robot.”

Ranger smiles and I smile back.

“You due for a break soon, Ranger?”

“After I dump these chickens.”

“Meet me in the Men’s Room in ten minutes.”

His smile gets wider. “Sure thing, Sally.”

My grin shatters.

“Sadie,” I correct him.

He appears confused.

“My name is
Sadie
.”

“Sadie, right.” He turns his attention to the chickens. The bags they’re wrapped in are different colors: Yellow for Lemon Pepper, green for Sage, red for Barbeque. “Sorry.”

I say, “It’s okay.”

But it’s not.

I stand there, watching Ranger, ideas formulating.

He glances at me. “What?”

I don’t like his condescending tone of voice.

“Nothing.”

“I said I’m sorry.”

As if that excuses him.

When I was off work, due to the
accident,
I had a lot of time to read. Not only self-help, other things. I downloaded a few books, including
Cereal
(by Blakette Crotch and Josephine Kornrash), about this woman who works in a supermarket, like me. She has this thing for Raisin Bran. I think it’s a true story. Anyway, I found it inspiring.